When Timothy McVeigh enters the Denver courtroom of Judge Richard Matsch, he does not behave at all as you would expect, given the rigid, blank-faced image he projected at his arrest. He usually emerges from the holding cell for defendants with a big smile. Wearing a button-down shirt and khaki pants, his hands in his pockets, he struts toward the defense table. On his way, he makes eyes at female paralegals and chats with them. He nods and grins at the press and the prosecutors. McVeigh is accused of killing 168 people, 19 of them children; he may face the death penalty. But here he is, smiling and flirting, behaving like a guest on the Tonight Show. It's Timothy McVeigh as O.J. Simpson.
After a recess is called and McVeigh is escorted away, his smile vanishes as soon as he re-enters the detention cell. His face immediately sets itself into a neutral expression. If he is playacting, you have to wonder what he thinks that will accomplish. Surely, the circumstances of the case call for utmost gravity on the part of everyone involved. Perhaps McVeigh's behavior is part of his ongoing effort to show that he is just a regular guy, not a narrow-eyed fanatic. If so, he is defeating his own purpose: a regular guy would never act so glibly in this situation, nor would he be capable of such a pretense.
Last Saturday was the second anniversary of the explosion that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Sometime this summer, 12 men and women will try to answer the question of what Timothy McVeigh was doing at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995. Jury selection began March 31, and a panel is expected to be seated this week, with opening statements perhaps being given on Thursday. The trial will take four or five months, if not longer--and as many as 500 witnesses may testify.
The Oklahoma City bombing is by far the worst terrorist attack in American history, and the pressure on prosecutors to win a conviction could not be greater. According to a new TIME/CNN poll, 83% of the public believes McVeigh is guilty, so if the jury acquits him, the prosecutors, led by Joseph Hartzler, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney from Illinois, will face a tumult of outrage. Last week their burden appeared to become even heavier when the Justice Department released a damning report on the FBI forensics lab. The report specifically criticized work done in the Oklahoma bombing case, saying that investigators had drawn unjustifiable conclusions and failed to follow proper procedures. Potential jurors may have heard about the report, although they are supposed to avoid any news about the trial, and that may offset the damage done to the defense last month when the press reported that McVeigh had "confessed" to his lawyers. Prosecutors have known about the likely contents of the report for months and have taken steps to minimize its effects, but the FBI's flawed lab work certainly damages their case. Indeed, there is a popular sense that law enforcers have yet to complete basic spadework: 76% of people polled last week said that all those responsible for the bombing have not yet been captured and identified. McVeigh's defense is likely to buttress similar feelings among jurors with a slew of stories from people who will tell tales at variance with the government's thesis of McVeigh the mastermind.