Tears in Denver

DENVER: TIME's Patrick Cole reports from Denver that jurors started crying even before the first witness took the stand in Timothy McVeigh's sentencing hearing as Prosecutor Patrick Ryan asked them to remember all 168 people that McVeigh's bomb killed. "It would be easy for you as a jury to think of this as one mass murder. Don't. There are 168 people, all unique, all individual . . . All had families, all had friends, and they're different." Two of the jurors began to cry once more as Sonya Diane Leonard, who lost her husband, told them: "I feel like I died too on April 19. I feel like my heart looks like that building, that it has a big hole in it." Because they can not object to any statements during this phase of the trial, McVeigh's lawyers were unable to soften the impact of the testimony. Although many experts predict McVeigh's only chance at avoiding the death penalty is to take the stand, Cole says that's not likely. Instead, his defense will try to rely on testimony from McVeigh's father and sister, and pin their hopes on an appeal on the jury's guilty verdict.