Jury Is Seated for 2nd Oklahoma Bombing Trial

Seven women and five men were selected Thursday to serve as jurors in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Terry L. Nichols, clearing the way for opening statements Monday in the second and final case stemming from the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people.

Nichols, a 42-year-old father of three, faces the death penalty if convicted on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy in the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. His co-defendant and former Army buddy, Timothy J. McVeigh, 29, was convicted on all of those same counts by a separate jury. He was sentenced to death last June.

Attorneys for Nichols and the government completed jury selection Thursday, after 4 1/2 weeks of closely questioning prospective panelists, when each side used its 23 peremptory challenges against members of a 64-person pool. Six alternate jurors, evenly split by gender, were also chosen.

The panel that will decide Nichols’ fate includes two bus drivers, a day-care worker, a bank clerk, a soda machine installer, a telemarketer, a loading dock worker, a maintenance employee, a nurse, a remedial reading tutor, a geophysicist and a contract seamstress whose husband is a corrections officer.

Several jurors, in answering questions posed during the selection process, said they have had personal experience with crime, and many acknowledged wrestling with how they feel about the death penalty. To preserve their anonymity, U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch has had the jurors identified only by numbers.

As the process neared its conclusion Thursday, Nichols’ defense attorneys seemed almost ebullient at the selections, smiling and conferring animatedly with their client, dressed in a blue blazer, white shirt and black turtleneck.

“We look forward to talking to the jurors on Monday morning,” said Nichols’ lead counsel, Michael E. Tigar, as he emerged from court in midafternoon.

Larry Mackey, the government’s chief prosecutor in the case, said, “We’re quite satisfied we’ve ended up with a jury that will hear both sides fairly.”