After days of sitting stoically through emotional testimony from relatives of victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols repeatedly wiped his eyes Friday as his wife and former wife spoke lovingly about his role as a devoted husband and father.
They were two of only nine witnesses called Friday by the defense, which, in a surprise move, opened its penalty-phase case and then rested after 3 1/2 hours.
Marife Nichols, the first defense witness, said Nichols made flash cards in prison to teach the alphabet to his daughter, Nicole. She also described how he made greeting cards for his children colored by toothpaste.
Lana Padilla, Nichols’ wife from 1982 to 1989, broke down as she read letters Nichols wrote to their son Josh telling him how much he missed him. The letters expressed Nichols’ pride in his son and encouraged him to do his best in school.
As he listened to their testimony, Nichols repeatedly bowed his head, removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with a white handkerchief. It was only the second time during the two-month trial that Nichols was seen expressing emotion. He had cried when Padilla offered similar testimony before the case had gone to the jury.
Earlier Friday, before the jury entered the courtroom, lead defense lawyer Michael Tigar asked U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to decide the sentence himself. He argued that inflammatory testimony from some of the 55 prosecution witnesses had tainted the jury.
“I’ve been doing this for 32 years,” Tigar said, “but never have I seen anything like this.”
Tigar contended that the numerous warnings by Matsch for jurors to disregard emotion will do little to “guide this jury from the shoals of vengeance to the safe harbor of reason.”
Matsch denied the motion.
Marife Nichols and Lana Padilla were among siblings, childhood friends–and even a midwife who helped deliver Nichols’ daughter–called by the defense to paint Nichols in human terms and support its argument that he should not receive the death penalty for his role in the conspiracy to bomb the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. The blast killed 168 people and injured 500 others.
Initially, the defense indicated it would call up to 60 character witnesses.
Testimony ranged from Nichols’ boyhood days on a Michigan farm to his life as an incarcerated father.
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Their testimony “rounds out Nichols, giving him form and shape,” said Andrew Cohen, a Denver defense lawyer and trial analyst.
Still, it “sounds kind of trite given the dramatic and emotional testimony (about how the bombing devastated numerous lives) that the jurors heard from the witnesses for the prosecution,” Cohen said. “The jurors are going to pick up on the fact that Nichols tears up only when his family is on the stand and not when family members of the victims testify.”
Marife Nichols described the flash cards for Nicole and greeting cards Nichols made for family members. She described Nichols as a concerned husband who has attempted to care for her and the family, despite being locked up in federal prison.
Padilla described how Nichols loved Josh, now 15, and cared for her two sons like a father. The defense showed the jury photos in which Nichols roughhoused with his sons and made snowmen with them.
Nichols, Padilla said, was the most important person in Josh’s life. “He was a full-time father. . . . Always in his soft-spoken way he would teach Josh–always giving him something of substance.”
Josh sat in the back of the courtroom Friday afternoon. At one point, he caught his father’s glance and smiled.
The prosecution and defense will make their closing arguments Monday. Jurors are expected to start deliberating in the afternoon.