McALESTER, Okla. (ABP) — A jailhouse conversion to Christianity may be what saved Terry Nichols from the death penalty during a state trial for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, according to both the prosecution and defense lawyers.
Nichols faced 161 counts of first-degree murder during his two-month trial in McAlester, Okla., which included 250 witness testimonies. During his federal trial in 1998, a jury deadlocked over the death penalty, resulting in a sentence of life in prison for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officials.
As many as eight of the 12 jurors agreed June 12 to impose the death penalty, but because the decision wasn't unanimous, a deadlock again resulted in a sentence of life in prison, according to the Associated Press.
“Terry Nichols' belief in God is so firm that he believes if the rapture occurred today he is going to heaven,'' defense attorney Creekmore Wallace told jurors. Defense witnesses testified during Nichols' sentencing that he wore out four Bibles praying and researching and sent an 83-page letter to a prayer partner in Michigan, Associated Press said.
Although prosecution lawyers agree Nichols' Christianity earned sympathy from jurors, they noted his convenient timing and doubted his sincerity. “I don't see Terry Nichols as being repentant, necessarily,'' District Attorney Wes Lane told AP. “I know that Mr. Nichols was not willing to accept responsibility.''
Defense attorneys argued Nichols was manipulated by Timothy McVeigh — who was executed for the bombing in 2001 — and that McVeigh and others set up Nichols to take the blame for the bombing.
A defense attorney's closing arguments asked the jury to reflect on Nichols' inherent worth before sentencing him to death.
According to TalkLeft, a liberal source for political and crime-related news, defense attorney Barbara Bergman told the jury, “You must now decide, Do you kill Terry Nichols? He is a person with a heart and a soul, and a person whose life is worth saving. … He is a person who values and is valued by other people.”
Lane told the Associated Press the state trial was about seeking justice for the other victims, not securing the death penalty.
And the jury decided Nichols' just punishment is not death.
However, Christians on both sides of the capital punishment issue claim justice as their justification.
The Southern Baptist Convention approved a resolution at the June 2000 annual meeting in support of capital punishment. The resolution says “God authorized capital punishment for murder after the Noahic Flood, validating its legitimacy in human society.” It endorses the “fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death.”
Whether just or unjust, the death penalty again was not applied to Nichols. And Christianity, which both opponents and supporters of capital punishment claim as justification, may have saved his life.
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— Kirsten Pasha is an intern with Associated Baptist Press