Time: Mon Sep 29 10:02:00 1997
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Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:36:19 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: OKC-Stage set for Act II (fwd)

<snip>
>
>>From Denver Post:
>
>Stage is set for Act II
>
> By George Lane and Howard Pankratz
> Denver Post Legal Staff Writers 
>
> Sept. 28 - The trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Terry Nichols
> begins Monday with a sharply different cast of characters than the first
> trial.
>
> New lawyers, new witnesses and new evidence will set the Nichols trial
> apart from that of co-defendant Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted in
> June on 11 murder, conspiracy and weapons charges, and sentenced to
> die.
>
> Interest is extremely high in the foreign press, especially journalists from
> Germany, England and Spain, who believe more will be revealed this time
> about the United States - and its shadowy far-right extremists - than at
> the McVeigh trial.
>
> "They thought McVeigh was a loose cannon," said Wayne Wicks,
> executive director of the trial's media consortium. "But they view Nichols
> as more mainstream militia and feel there may be something here." James
> Nichols, Terry's brother, has repeatedly denied that he or Terry were
> members of the militia. Nichols said they found the militia too extreme.
>
> But the trial is likely to touch on some of the anti-government views held
> by some of the Nichols family and a few of their acquaintances in
> Michigan's Thumb region. Some of the new reporters at the trial are from
> Michigan newspapers.
>
> Attending the trial throughout will be Nichols' mother, Joyce Nichols, of
> Lapeer, Mich. Brother James Nichols and father Bob Nichols are
> expected to be in Denver for abbreviated stays.
>
> Jury selection will proceed Monday in a fashion similar to that during the
> McVeigh case. More than 400 potential jurors recently reported to the
> Jefferson County Fairgrounds to answer questions before the actual jury
> selection.
>
> Likely to be called as witnesses once testimony begins are Decker,
> Mich., neighbors of the Nichols, including Phil Morawski.
>
> A farmer and "rural chaplain" who counsels beleaguered farmers,
> Morawski expects to testify as a defense witness in Terry Nichols' behalf.
>
> Morawski has been in Denver once before - to testify as a defense
> witness during the penalty phase of the McVeigh trial. But Morawski
> never made it to the witness stand. At the last moment, according to
> Morawski, McVeigh attorney Richard Burr decided U.S. District Judge
> Richard Matsch might interpret Morawski's testimony as a veiled threat.
>
> Morawski was going to testify that he was concerned the United States
> might be the target of suicide bombings carried out by angry farmers if
> McVeigh was sentenced to die.
>
> "Some people believe it is a little extreme," Morawski said of his
> concerns. "But it is not if you know these people." Morawski's scenario in
> which a series of courthouses are blown up by suicide bombers in the
> months and years after the McVeigh death sentence is spelled out in
> Morawski's dissertation called "The Letter." The attacks are carried out
> by farmers who have been immersed in anti-government and anti-Jewish
> literature and regularly attend meetings where McVeigh and the Montana
> Freemen are discussed.
>
> "Most of those at the meeting believe Tim is one of them and was
> framed," Morawski writes.
>
> Wicks said he fielded a call recently from people who described
> themselves as militia members from Montana upset about their inability to
> gather in front of the federal courthouse during the Nichols trial.
>
> Law enforcement officials say vigilance around the courthouse remains at
> high levels.
>
> According to Tina Rowe, the U.S. Marshal in Denver, federal, state and
> local law enforcement and intelligence agencies "continually evaluate and
> re-evaluate" the situation at the federal courthouse and "make adjustments
> of security accordingly." The huge concrete barricades erected for the
> McVeigh trial continue to ring the courthouse with federal and local police
> patroling the perimeter in visible numbers.
>
> All the streets, and most of the sidewalks, around the courthouse remain
> open. And only a few parking lots have been closed to the public.
>
> Butch Montoya, director of Public Safety for Denver, said law
> enforcement agencies "will staff this trial with the same intensity that we
> staffed" the McVeigh trial. Police will be visible on horseback,
> motorcycle and car.
>
> The high visibility is there by design, said Montoya.
>
> "It creates an atmosphere of security not only for the court but for the
> hundreds of federal workers that work in those buildings - the Customs
> House, the old Post Office and the Federal Building - as well as the
> business people that also commute and work downtown," he said.
>
> There also will be "an unseen presence ... whether undercover or
> whatever," 
>
> Montoya said.
>
> No one is sure just how long the trial will go, but estimates are that it
>will finish around Christmas. Both sides are mum on the number of witnesses
> they will call.
>
<snip>

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Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris      : Counselor at Law, federal witness
B.A., Political Science, UCLA;  M.S., Public Administration, U.C. Irvine
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