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Fortier, meanwhile, can expect that Jones will try to obliterate him on cross-examination. Jones has grounds to attack his credibility: Fortier has changed his story several times, and he is testifying for the prosecution as part of a plea-bargaining deal. As for The Turner Diaries, McVeigh's visit to Waco and other evidence about McVeigh's opinions, Jones will argue that none of it proves his client blew up the Murrah building.
Jones may be flamboyant, but he is also smart. He has already won two important victories, by getting the venue for the trial moved out of Oklahoma and by convincing Judge Matsch that McVeigh should be tried separately from Nichols. It was the first time the judge had ever agreed to sever the cases of two defendants. "Stephen Jones is a ferociously intelligent trial lawyer," says Mimi Wesson, a professor of criminal law at the University of Colorado and a former U.S. Attorney in Denver from 1980 to 1982. "I have read some of his briefs in the McVeigh case, and there is some very fine legal work."
This is a grim epic under way in Denver. Officially, the case is called United States of America v. Timothy James McVeigh, and never has such an appellation been more fitting. The entire country truly seems to be the plaintiff, while the defendant, if the descriptions of him are fair, apparently sees the world as Timothy James McVeigh vs. the United States of America. The nation has mourned for two years. Come the summer, it will discover if it has brought the perpetrator of the horrors of Oklahoma to justice.
--Reported by Patrick E. Cole/Denver and Elaine Shannon/Washington