A request by Mr. McVeigh would give his lawyers more time to study documents relating to his 1997 trial in the Oklahoma City bombing that the F.B.I. said were found only recently. His future might then be determined by Judge Richard P. Matsch of Federal District Court, who presided over Mr. McVeigh's trial and sentencing, and not necessarily by Attorney General John Ashcroft, who delayed the original date of execution, May 16, by almost a month after thousands of pages of missing documents were discovered in several F.B.I. field offices. Mr. Ashcroft said he wanted defense lawyers to have an adequate chance to review the documents even though he said Justice Department officials had assured him that the documents held nothing that could help Mr. McVeigh avoid execution, let alone gain a new trial. Mr. McVeigh has admitted to placing the bomb that killed 168 people outside the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995, and as his original execution date approached, he said, through his lawyers, that he was prepared to die. Yet authorizing them to draw up papers that would seek a stay, based on the need to study the newly found documents in greater depth, suggests that Mr. McVeigh has not given up a desire to live.
People are free to draw any inference they want.
Mr. Chambers said that he and other lawyers for Mr. McVeigh have now read more than 4,000 pages of previously unseen documents relating to the case, but that he was not certain they had seen everything. No matter how helpful the missing documents might be to Mr. McVeigh, their late arrival has shined a harsh light on the F.B.I., giving critics in Congress and beyond another reason to question the bureau's leadership and the integrity of its work. That's the greatest concern to me, that you wait until a week before the execution to say, Oh, by the way, we have your documents. There's no reason for it unless there is negligence. McVeigh's guilt in this horrendous act of terrorism remains unquestioned.