The killing was postponed for one month after FBI officials admitted they withheld 4,449 pages of documents concerning the case that should have been given to McVeigh’s lawyers before his trial. The revelation came six days before his originally scheduled May 16 execution. Despite this attack on his right to a fair trial the Justice Department pressed ahead with the state-sanctioned murder and two courts refused to stay his execution.

The rightist McVeigh was convicted for the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in which 168 people were killed. McVeigh had appealed his conviction citing pretrial publicity and the government’s failure to turn over relevant documents. The U.S. government prepared an elaborate public spectacle of the execution, which included a private viewing through closed circuit television at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City for nearly 200 relatives of those killed in the blast.

After admitting his role in the blast McVeigh became a useful target for Washington to press its campaign to step up federal executions. In 1994 the Clinton administration expanded the federal death penalty under a crime bill to include more than 60 additional offenses.

McVeigh’s death paves the way for executions of the other 19 federal death row inmates. About a week after this execution, another inmate, Juan Raul Garza, is scheduled to be killed in the Terre Haute death chamber. Garza is among 17 Blacks and Latinos facing execution by the federal government.  
 
 
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