Widow finds "some justice" in life sentence for Nichols
6/8/1998 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York by United Methodist News Service The widow of an Oklahoma City bombing victim takes "some consolation" in the life sentence handed to convicted conspirator Terry Nichols, but she remains angry at the jury, which refused to render the death penalty against him.
"Just the fact that he's not going to be re-entering public life is a sense of some justice," said Anne Marshall, an executive with the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns.
Marshall's husband, Raymond Johnson, was among the 168 people killed when a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building on April 19, 1995.
Nichols, 43, was sentenced June 4 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for conspiracy to bomb the Oklahoma City building. He also received eight concurrent six-year terms in prison for the deaths of eight federal agents in the blast.
In addition, U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch ordered Nichols to pay $14.5 million in restitution to the government. During the sentencing, Matsch called the case a crime against the U.S. Constitution as well as against the human victims.
Nichols was convicted in December of conspiracy to blow up a federal building and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Some had feared that Nichols would get off lightly because the Denver jury had acquitted him of first-degree murder charges and had deadlocked during the penalty phase in early January, sending the case back to the judge for sentencing.
Marshall had been angry that the jurors could not reach a death penalty verdict. She believes they took the case too lightly and didn't listen to the evidence.
She said she was pleased "with the fact that the U.S. attorney's office did such a good job of portraying him (Nichols) as an enemy of the Constitution" during the sentencing hearing. She thinks the prosecutors' persuasiveness contributed to the stiff sentence.
The U.S. attorney's office is setting up a meeting on June 20 for victims' families to talk with jurors from the trial of Timothy McVeigh, according to Marshall. McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the bombing, and Marshall said she had no problems with that jury.
"I would really like to talk to the forewoman of the Nichols trial," she added.
Many family members of victims "have vested a lot of hope" that Nichols will eventually receive the death penalty after being tried on state charges in Oklahoma later this year, Marshall said. Bob Macy, the district attorney for Oklahoma County, has a strong conviction record in death penalty cases, she said.
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