Nichols Faces OK Murder Trial

Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombing conspirator who is already serving life in federal prison, must stand trial in state court on 160 counts of first-degree murder that could bring the death penalty, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Nichols, 48, will be arraigned next Tuesday.

The decision by District Judge Allen McCall essentially means Nichols will be tried again for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others.

Nichols was convicted in 1997 of federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of eight law enforcement officers in the bombing.

The state charges cover all other victims and Nichols has already lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that a state trial amounts to double jeopardy.

Bombing mastermind Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder after a federal trial. He was executed in June 2001.

The preliminary hearing for Nichols featured the same arguments and some of the same witnesses who testified against McVeigh and Nichols at the federal trials.

Prosecutors say the blast was a twisted bid at revenge against the government for the deadly siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, exactly two years earlier.

They said Army buddies Nichols and McVeigh worked side by side preparing the 4,000-pound fuel-and-fertilizer bomb. Nichols was at home in Herington, Kan., the day the bomb exploded, but prosecutors say he helped deliver a getaway car to Oklahoma City and helped pack the bomb inside the Ryder truck a day earlier.

The prosecution's star witness, Michael Fortier, took the stand again to describe how McVeigh and Nichols detonated explosives in the Arizona desert and experimented with ingredients that were later used in the bombing.

According to Fortier, McVeigh said Nichols was deeply involved in the plot.

Nichols also called then-Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker's office two days before the bombing to complain about the deadly end of the Branch Davidian standoff, according to an aide to the former Kansas lawmaker.

"He was very stern and told us about his thinking on the matter," Lee Ellen Alexander testified. She said Nichols also complained about gun laws and former Attorney General Janet Reno.

Nichols' wife, Marife Nichols, testified and so did his former wife, Lana Padilla, who said she was surprised to discover several months before the bombing that he had amassed thousands of dollars in cash and supplies at a time when she thought he was broke. Prosecutors allege Nichols participated in a series of robberies and thefts to raise money to carry out the bombing.

State prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty and say a state conviction is needed in any case to guard against the chance Nichols might someday successfully appeal his federal conviction and gain freedom.

Legal analysts say a state trial may be hampered by some of the same legal issues that delayed the start of the preliminary hearing for more than three years. For one thing, prosecutors must overcome defense claims that an impartial jury cannot be found in Oklahoma that will give Nichols a fair trial.

The federal bombing trials were moved to Denver after U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled that McVeigh and Nichols had been "demonized" by intense media coverage in Oklahoma.

CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen was not surprised by the judge's ruling to allow the murder trial. "It would have been a shock had the judge ruled that Terry Nichols could NOT stand trial in Oklahoma," said Cohen.

"It's also pretty much a foregone conclusion that Nichols will be convicted of these state charges. The only open question is whether the federal courts would uphold a death sentence for a man they once said couldn't get a fair trial in Oklahoma," said Cohen.