McALESTER, Okla. - An Oklahoma jury’s inability to decide whether to send bombing conspirator Terry Nichols to death row may reflect wider misgivings about the death penalty, his defense attorneys say.
Oklahoma led the nation in executions three years ago and has one of the highest death row populations in the nation. But the jury that convicted Nichols on 161 counts of first-degree murder for the bombing deadlocked on whether to sentence him to death.
It took Nichols’ 12-member state jury just five hours to find him guilty of murder May 26, but jurors deliberated over his punishment for 19 1/2 hours over three days before concluding on Friday they could not agree on a penalty.
The deadlock means Nichols will automatically be sentenced to life in prison for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 people. Bombing mastermind Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the attack in federal court and was executed in 2001.
Jurors who favored the death penalty said those who opposed it cited Nichols’ jailhouse conversion to Christianity and believed he might be able to help other prisoners and his three children.
US justice system cannot execute Christian Mass Murderer!
In a case not too long ago John Allen Muhammad, who has been sentenced to death over one of the murders in a string of sniper killings in Washington.
Why the contradiction, the western governments often hold up there justice system as an example, a lot of people think it is a poor system with no justice in many cases, the western justice system is very flawed leaving the decision of a 12 person jury to decide the fate of a person is similar to tossing up a coin and calling heads or tails this is the essence of western justice!