Mcveigh Won’t Use Insanity Defense

Timothy McVeigh will not use an insanity defense when he goes on trial in the Oklahoma bombing, his lawyers said Thursday.

“The psychiatric and psychological evaluations aren’t 100 percent completed, but from what we know at this point we have no reason to assert a mental defect,” attorney Stephen Jones said. “He’s as sane as any lawyer or reporter.”

He said McVeigh has been pronounced competent by Dr. Seymour Halleck, a University of North Carolina psychiatrist who testified for the defense in Susan Smith’s trial for drowning her two sons in South Carolina. Other experts also were examining McVeigh.

McVeigh and Terry Nichols go on trial May 17 in Lawton, about 90 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.