Oklahoma City Bombing Trials: 1997-98

By the time a grand jury was convened, Fortier and his wife, Lori, had agreed to cooperate with the government. Their testimony, along with the prosecution's evidence and emotional testimony by McVeigh's sister Jennifer, convinced the jury to return an indictment on August 10. Defense attorneys protested that the real bombers might still be at large or could have perished in the explosion.

The indictments against McVeigh and Nichols charged them with one count each of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, and destruction by explosive. Despite the loss of life resulting from the bomb, federal law confined prosecutors to seeking murder charges only in the deaths of federal law enforcement officers. The grand jury returned counts of first-degree murder for each of eight Secret Service, Customs Service, Housing and Urban Development, and Drug Enforcement Administration agents who were killed. The two defendants would be tried separately. Prosecutors announced that they would seek the death penalty against both McVeigh and Nichols.

News coverage of the horror in Oklahoma City complicated the task of assembling an unbiased jury. After unsuccessfully trying to arrange a suitable venue in Oklahoma, the trial was assigned to Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, who moved the case to Denver, Colorado, ruling that McVeigh and Nichols had been "demonized" by media coverage in Oklahoma. Matsch initially barred survivors and victims' family members from attending the trial if they planned to testify. He was later forced to reverse his ruling when Congress passed a law allowing limited public access to the proceedings. Matsch approved a closed-circuit telecast to be shown in a government auditorium in Oklahoma City, but banned the news media from the viewing site.