U.S. Asks Judge To Quit Oklahoma Bomb Case

The Justice Department on Friday asked the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the Oklahoma City bombing case to step aside to reduce the possibility of appeals raised by defense lawyers.

Lawyers for the defendants, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, had asked late last month that Judge Wayne Alley remove himself from the case and had questioned whether he could be impartial because of his personal ties to the bombing.

His courtroom, across the street from the federal building that was destroyed in the April 19 bombing, was heavily damaged and a member of his staff was cut and bruised in the blast.

The judge was not in the courthouse at the time, and he has said that he saw no reason to step aside.

In court papers filed Friday, prosecutors said there was no legal requirement that Alley step down. But it nonetheless urged him to do so out of an abundance of caution.

“It is of paramount importance that the nation have complete confidence in the integrity of the verdict ultimately reached in this case,” the government said, “and that partisan detractors not be permitted - however wrongly - to raise questions about judicial fairness.”

The government’s petition was signed by U.S. Attorney Patrick M. Ryan and other prosecutors.

“There is too much at stake here to risk even an erroneous reversal, with all its attendant costs to the people of the United States, and most importantly, to the victims of this terrible crime,” the government said.

“Failure to recuse could cause delay, uncertainty and unwarranted focus on a matter that is collateral to the overriding issue of these defendants’ guilt or innocence.”

If Alley agrees, then a new judge would be appointed by Chief Judge Stephanie Seymour of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which oversees the federal courts in Oklahoma and five other states.

Because several other federal judges in Oklahoma City have already recused themselves and all of the others would likely be as objectionable to the defense as Alley, Judge Seymour could look to the two other federal districts in Oklahoma, or she could find a judge from another part of the circuit.

Defense lawyers have said that if a new judge is selected, they intend to try to move the trial outside Oklahoma.

Carl Stern, the Justice Department’s chief spokesman, said that the government believed the defendants could get a fair trial in Oklahoma.

He believes the case should remain in the state.