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Timothy McVeigh Defense
The Defense of Timothy McVeigh
On May 5, 1995, the Honorable David Russell, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, contacted Stephen Jones. Judge Russell wished to discuss the representation of Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case. After discussing the matter with family members and with office attorneys and personnel, Stephen Jones elected to accept the appointment to represent Timothy McVeigh on May 8, 1995. The McVeigh case and Stephen Jones' appointment has been the subject of world-wide publicity since the bombing on April 19, 1995.
In the defense of Mr. McVeigh, Jones and the defense secured Tenth Circuit orders recusing Judge Alley from the trial, appointment of Judge Richard Matsch, a change of venue from Oklahoma City to Denver, a severance of trials, suppression of Terry Nichols' incriminating statement against Tim McVeigh, suppression of so-called handwriting expert opinion, suppression of results of use of New Mexico explosive tests by government, sequestration of witnesses, closing orders to control the media.
Judge Richard Matsch wrote of Mr. Jones, "The efforts made by Mr. Jones to establish a working relationship with news media were consistent with the perceived need to humanize his client and counter the vast amount of negative publicity about him. The Supreme Court has recognized the legitimacy of such efforts in Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada (internal citations omitted) as this court did in this case". United States v. McVeigh, 118 F. Supp.2d 1137 at 1150 (D. Colo. 2000). Jones' repeated claims that the government had withheld exculpatory evidence and had misrepresented to the federal court and to Jones the amount of documentation furnished won dramatic vindication in a 30-day stay of execution of McVeigh when in the spring of 2001 the Attorney General of the United States conceded that over 4,000 documents had been withheld from the Judge and the defense. Because McVeigh, against Jones' advice, had incriminated himself and claimed that he and he alone was responsible, McVeigh's lawyers could not use this new development to save his life.