The Trial of Timothy McVeigh - Case Study Example

This paper will consider the type of evidence that used against McVeigh by the prosecution as well as an enumeration of the converse evidence that the defense sought to use a means of casting doubt into the minds of the jurors with regards to the case. The prosecution relied primarily on a combination of physical and eyewitness testimony from those that either new McVeigh personally or professionally. One of the witnesses that the prosecution called was that of Jennifer McVeigh; Timothy McVeigh’s own sister.

Her testimony regarding the letters that McVeigh had sent her concerning his fury and rage over the actions of the United States government and the means by which he ultimately sought to rectify this evil were of primal importance for helping to paint McVeigh’s act as something that was highly premeditated and filled with rage and anger that, in his mind, necessitated revenge. However, Jennifer McVeigh’s testimony was not so clean as one may like to think due to the fact that the defense was able to prove that she had lied under great duress to the FBI in prior statements (Roebuck & Gest 1997).

This was proven to be a function of the fact that when they had first interviewed her, they had done so for 8-10 hours per day for 8 days straight; continually threatening her that if she did not comply completely they would charge her with treason or any other number of federal crimes that were ultimately punishable by the death penalty. As such, the way in which this witness was utilized by the prosecution was highly suspect with regards to whether she was telling the truth or a version of the truth that the prosecution felt would be the most useful to the case.

However, the most detailed account of McVeigh’s motives and eyewitness testimony to hearing these motives expounded was that of Michael J. Fortier; one of Timothy McVeigh’s old Army friends. Among other information that Michael J. Fortier was able to engage the jury and the prosecution with was the fact that McVeigh had told him that McVeigh’s hatred for the government had reached such proportions that he intended to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as a means of causing “ a general uprising in America” (Esposito 1998).

Conversely, the testimony of the Fortiers, both Michael and his wife, was sought to be discredited by the defense due to the fact that they were known drug users who also could have easily been blackmailed by the government to testify against their former friend based upon the grounds that long prison sentences could have faced them had they chosen to refuse. Furthermore, evidence that was provided by the written and sworn statements of the Fortiers showed that they had repeatedly changed their earlier statements with regards to the key instances of the bomb plot and of their knowledge about its proceedings.

With regards to the physical evidence that was presented, the prosecution sought to utilize the fact that explosive residue was found on the jeans, t-shirt, and earplugs that McVeigh was wearing at the time of his arrest (Cohen 1998). Further physical evidence was revealed to have shown McVeigh’s fingerprint on a receipt for approximately 1 ton of ammonium nitrate used to make the bomb.