As the Deadline Passes, McVeigh Fails to File Plea for Clemency

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh allowed a deadline to pass Thursday night without asking the president to spare his life.

McVeigh, 32, is scheduled to die by injection May 16 in the first execution by the federal government in 37 years.

“The office of pardon attorney did not receive a petition from McVeigh,” Justice Department spokeswoman Chris Watney said after the midnight deadline had passed.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons set the execution date after McVeigh dropped all appeals. Under federal rules, he had one month after the date was set to file a request for clemency.

Attorney Rob Nigh Jr. said Thursday that he had drafted a clemency petition in case McVeigh wanted to submit it. McVeigh’s attorneys said they would discuss their client’s decision at news conferences today.

The Persian Gulf War veteran was convicted of murder and other charges in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people and injured more than 500 in the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

The government has received 250 requests from victims and relatives who want to watch McVeigh die, and is considering a closed-circuit television broadcast of the execution.

McVeigh, who is on death row at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., wrote in a letter published in the Sunday Oklahoman that his execution should be broadcast publicly.

He has given interviews to two reporters for the Buffalo (N.Y.) News who wrote a biography to be published in April.