Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has decided to abandon his legal battle against his execution in the wake of the two defeats handed him by US courts in recent days, his lawyers said yesterday.
"Mr McVeigh doesn't want to proceed any further in legal action in order to stop his execution," the 33-year-old's attorney Mr Rob Nigh told reporters. The announcement came after a federal appeals court denied his request for a stay of execution.
That denial, McVeigh's second judicial disappointment in two days appears to have reconciled the bomber to his fate.
Mr Nigh said McVeigh wanted to use the time remaining before his execution on Monday to prepare for his death by lethal injection.
The bomber's legal team had sought to exploit the opportunity afforded them by the discovery - within the last month - that the FBI had failed to turn over evidence to McVeigh's legal team prior to his 1997 trial.
His lawyers had argued that their client had been denied "due process" and that they needed more time to review the thousands of pages of documents.
But neither federal judge Richard Matsch, who presided over McVeigh's original trial, or a three-judge panel from the 10th US Court of Appeals were convinced by that argument.
And although McVeigh could have pursued his battle to the US Supreme Court, it would have been a legal battle with diminishing returns, noted Prof Steven Lubet of Northwestern University's School of Law in Chicago.
"His chances fall at every succeeding stage," said Prof Lubet.-- (AFP)
US Attorney General John Ashcroft applauded a federal appeals court decision allowing McVeigh's execution to proceed, calling it a "ruling in favour of justice".
"The court could not have been more clear today in stating that McVeigh has utterly failed to demonstrate substantial grounds for a further delay of his execution," Mr Ashcroft said in a twoparagraph statement issued after the ruling.
"Timothy McVeigh is responsible for the brutal murder of 168 people, including 19 children, and he will now be brought to justice," he said.