Ashcroft Postpones McVeigh’s Execution

Re Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft postponing the execution of Timothy McVeigh, May 12:

I am truly grateful to be an American and to know that our leaders of the Justice Department have found it in our best interest to give attention to the FBI files rather than go forward, in the normal manner of political correctness, with haste and take care of damages later.

This is a wonderful redemption from the violent stances taken by the Justice Department in Waco and by McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing. Neither sought truth; both were violent reactions. I feel that we have taken a big step as a nation and our voice of the ‘60s is finally being heard and given attention.

Martha Wonderlick

Big Bear Lake

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Re “McVeigh Lawyers Looking for Stay,” May 11:

Does the postponement of McVeigh’s execution due to the “lost” FBI files seem strange? Do you ever remember the FBI saying, “Hey, wait up, we have more information for you that may affect the outcome of the case”? McVeigh’s execution would be the first federal execution in 38 years. It will be televised on closed-circuit TV, as allowed by Atty. Gen. Ashcroft, a Christian. It’s poised to neatly serve this country’s Christian eye-for-an-eye sense of justice. Pretty scary. Can you imagine explaining this to a child?

There’s more to this story. Pelan los ojos.

Mimi Sanchez-Quesada

Santa Ana

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All right, students, please signal by holding up your right hand: All of you who believe that the FBI lost all those files, raise your hand. Ah!

Well, how many of you believe that agents just found them last week? Um, surely you don’t believe it’s another lawyer trick.

Uh oh! Isn’t it the duty of the defense lawyer to do everything he can to get his client off?

William A. Pace

Rolling Hills Estates

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The revelation by the FBI that it accidentally withheld perhaps thousands of documents from McVeigh’s defense team underscores one of the fundamental arguments against capital punishment: Whether through care-lessness or misguided zealousness, things can go wrong in a criminal trial, and that margin of error is too great for lives to be held in the balance, even if we are absolutely convinced of that party’s guilt.

Virtually any chance of finding out what really happened will die along with McVeigh. That alone is a good enough reason to forgo what McVeigh himself has called a “state-assisted suicide,” not to mention that McVeigh will make a far less potent symbol as a jailed mass murderer than as a martyr snuffed out by the government he opposed.

Jonathan Hilts

La Palma