The Ashes Of Waco Lawyers For Timothy Mcveigh Try To Make Good On Promise That Jurors Will ‘Walk In The Shoes’ Of The Man Convicted Of The Oklahoma City Bombing.

Timothy McVeigh’s lawyers on Tuesday took jurors back four years to the 51-day Branch Davidian siege in Texas in a bid to help them better understand the rage he has for the federal government.

Drawing heavily from articles in Soldier of Fortune magazine and from an hourlong video titled “Day 51,” the defense tried to explain McVeigh’s mind-set as he plotted to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch was adamant, however, that there be no retrial in his courtroom of the deadly standoff in 1993 between federal agents and cult members near Waco.

He told jurors it would be up to them to decide what, if any, relevance the defense presentation would have as they weighed whether McVeigh should live or die in an execution chamber.

“If we were to open this up for a full trial as to what happened at Waco … of course, there would be a great deal of controversy about what the facts were,” the judge said before the video was played for them.

“We are not here to decide those facts,” he said, but rather only to provide them some insight into McVeigh’s thinking.

McVeigh, 29, was convicted last week of conspiracy and murder in the April 19, 1995, truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people.

Now the seven-man, five-woman jury that found him guilty is nearly ready to decide his punishment. Final arguments for - and against - a death sentence could come as early as Wednesday.

McVeigh’s co-defendant, Terry Nichols, will be tried later on similar charges that also carry the death penalty.

In their quest to spare McVeigh’s life, his attorneys had promised jurors they would “walk in his shoes” to relive his “happy” days growing up near Buffalo, N.Y., and later how his disillusionment with the federal government turned to rage.

“The fire of Waco did keep burning in McVeigh,” his lead death-penalty attorney, Richard Burr of Houston, said in his opening statement.

As guides to the militia movement with which McVeigh identified, the defense called James L. Pate, the national affairs editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine, and Texas journalist Dick Reavis, who wrote the book “The Ashes of Waco.”

And in a brief sworn statement read by the judge, McVeigh said he followed the magazine closely - particularly its stories critical of the government’s role there - and watched videos also critical of federal agents.

The jury has not heard directly from McVeigh, a decorated Persian Gulf War veteran, and is not expected to. His father is scheduled to testify and narrate a short home movie about his son.

As she has throughout the penalty phase, McVeigh’s younger sister, Jennifer, sat just behind the defense tables on Tuesday.

She was a reluctant prosecution witness during the trial’s guilt phase, but is not expected to testify again.

“I love him,” she said as she walked into court Tuesday. “I don’t want him to die.”

Pate, whose articles harshly criticized the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for their handling of the Branch Davidians, said he viewed the militia movement as “low key” before the ill-fated raid Feb. 28, 1993, and resulting 51-day standoff.

After that, he said, those aligned with the militia began to see a “series of events” as a trend of abuse by federal agents.

In one of McVeigh’s writings cited Tuesday by his attorneys, the former Army sergeant portrayed himself as a “constitutional defender.”

“We members of the citizen’s militias do not bear our arms to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow those who pervert the Constitution,” he wrote, adding: “Citizen’s militias will hopefully ensure that violations of the Constitution by these power-hungry storm troopers of the federal government will not succeed again.”

Patrick Ryan, U.S. attorney from Oklahoma City, appeared so incensed by Pate’s writings that he fired questions at the witness, often not waiting for him to answer.

“Slow down, Mr. Ryan, and don’t comment on the testimony,” Judge Matsch said at one point.

Ryan suggested that Soldier of Fortune and Pate have expressed extremist views.

“Some would say you fuel this (anti-government) movement, wouldn’t they?” Ryan asked.

“No one has told me that, no sir,” Pate replied.

“Some would say you pander to this movement,” Ryan continued.

“No one has told me that, no sir,” Pate said again.

Pate said he attempts to be fair in his stories, not just slant them to appeal to so-called patriots or constitutionalists. He also said he was not a member of any such militia group.

Reavis took the stand just after the Day 51 video and helped provide context for excerpts of other anti-government videos.

He noted that government critics adhered to a series of conspiracy theories in which federal agents allegedly used flamethrowers to ignite the blaze that destroyed the sect’s compound and deliberately attempted to thwart any escape.

One government critic in the videos described the fiery end to the standoff as “America’s first Auschwitz.”

Federal officials have said the Branch Davidians fired the first shots of the raid and that they set fire to their compound.

Reavis said he twice met with McVeigh in prison, once in December 1995, to talk about a possible book on the Oklahoma City tragedy and again last April when he showed him a video titled “The Rules of Engagement.”