"... As I stood up in front of the jury, I looked them in the eye and I thought, if I am asking these 12 people to do something that I believe is morally just, and not just just but necessary in this case, I have to be able to do what I’m asking them to do. I have to be able to look Timothy McVeigh in the eye and say that he deserves to die. And so, as I was going through my closing argument, I turned to him and told the jury to take a moment and to look at him and call him a coward and tell him that he had committed treason, and that was something, obviously, that in our country we rejected – the use of violence to perpetrate political views – and to sentence him to death. That was perhaps for me the most difficult moment in the case, not because I did not believe it, but because I was looking into the eye of the person that I thought should receive the punishment …

... It didn’t take the jury very long to return the death sentence for Mr. McVeigh, and I felt no regret about participating in that process. In fact, on the day of the execution this past summer, I wondered how I would feel that morning as I watched the media announce the execution. Even as a Christian, I felt nothing for Mr. McVeigh. I felt a lot for the victims and I felt, obviously, a deep sadness for the country having suffered through this and for having to participate in this death machine to vindicate our moral principles and our rules of law, but I felt nothing for Mr. McVeigh..."

Frank Keating

"... I thought I would give you some of my thoughts and reflections from my perspective, from a public policy perspective, from a governor’s perspective, those of us, 50 of us who have a role to play in the capital punishment debate, because we are sworn to uphold the law in our states and we participate in the debate as well. I think my perspective might be of some interest to you ladies and gentlemen.

First, let me say that about two years ago I was invited by University College, Dublin ... and I arrived as a guest to participate in a debate on the subject of capital punishment ...

... When some who were Catholics pointed out that the pope felt that capital punishment should be rare if nonexistent, I said, "Well, in the United States, believe it or not, that is practically true." Between 1977 and the time of my speech – and it’s changed somewhat obviously unfortunately on the high side of homicides since then – we had something like 480,000 homicides and 629 executions. So for 480,000 deaths, we executed 629 people, something like 1/12th of 1 percent of the killings resulting in executions. If you applied that same standard to the Republic of Ireland, they wouldn’t execute anybody either, because 1/12th of 1 percent of 40 people is zero. There is no one out there.

In the state of Oklahoma in the heartland of America, right in the middle of the United States we had 8,000 homicides since 1977 and 30 executions, something like 1/2 of 1 percent of the killings in our state resulting in executions ...

... In my life I have been an FBI agent, I’ve been a state prosecutor, I’ve been a United States Attorney, I supervised all the federal prosecutions in the United States and many of the law enforcement agencies, most federal law enforcement agencies in the country, including the U.S. Bureau of Prisons ...

My background is a law enforcement background, not a divinity background. I remember as an FBI agent in Seattle, Washington I went to Seattle-Tacoma Airport during Christmas week and opened the door of a van and out tumbled a man who had been shot in the temple. He was the driver of that van and in the course of robbing him, his assailants had killed him. And I remember going to the home of his widow and his children and they had a Christmas tree and they had tinsel and they had lights and it was a very moving, a very wonderful, a very special, a very seasonal scene. And there I was talking to them about the father and the husband that they would never see; it just broke my heart that someone could do this to somebody else.

I must confess that probably some of the most ardent capital punishment advocates are people like me who have seen up close and person the flotsam, the jetsam of those who horribly, cruelly treat other people.

I remember in Ireland at my talk I said, "You tell me what I do with someone like Roger Dale Stafford, the first execution on my watch as governor." ...  tell me what you do with a Roger Dale Stafford, who south of Interstate 35 in Oklahoma City waved down a car consisting of a staff sergeant of the Air Force and his wife and their eight-year old son. He took the staff sergeant over the hill and he shot him in the face and killed him. This was a robbery. He took his wife over the same berm and shot her and killed her and he came down to the truck, and, whimpering in the back of the cab of the truck, wrapped up in blankets trying to get away from it all, was this eight-year old son, and he fired until he was out of bullets in the back of the truck until the whimpering stopped. Then he went to Oklahoma City in a steakhouse, a family type restaurant. It was closing up and he herded five 15-year olds into the freezer and killed them execution style as a part of taking money from the cash register. Now, what do you do with someone like that?

My sense of ethics, my sense of morals, my sense of right and wrong is one that says for someone who bounces a check you don’t chop off their hand but for somebody who kills eight human beings they forfeit the right to live. That is my sense of values, my sense of ethics.

Now, obviously if the state of Oklahoma or the state of Illinois or the United States were to move in another direction, I take an oath to uphold the law and I would do so, not necessarily with a smile but I would do so because I look at someone like that and I say that this good earth, this wonderful land is too good for him. I believe that.

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 of our neighbors and friends in Oklahoma City, including 19 children.

Now, people say when you debate the death penalty you shouldn’t get into emotions, you shouldn’t talk about individuals, but you have to, because that’s what it is all about, people doing horrible incredibly sick, evil things to other people.

And to have someone like Timothy McVeigh making a political statement, knowing that there was a daycare center in a building and blowing it up and seeing the wreckage, the carnage that resulted, the anguish, the agony, the destruction of lives and livelihoods and happiness and future that resulted, I am unforgiving.

I think, of course, that we want to make sure we have the right person. I think, of course, that that individual has the rights and the full panoply of the criminal justice system, including a first rate defense. But when it is over, in my judgment, the law should be carried out, if that is what a judge or a jury decides. That does not cause me much disquiet. I don’t have a sleepless night.

Now, for those to say, "But isn’t there a chance that you would execute the innocent," there’s no evidence of that ... Look what George Ryan did here in Illinois about the prospect of some innocent person being executed. If I were George Ryan I would have done exactly the same thing. If you have evidence that there is suborned perjury or fabricated evidence, then certainly you stop the wheels and get to the bottom of it and clean it up, clean out that stable. What we have done in Oklahoma is to require that every felony case and certainly every capital case have, at our expense, DNA testing. And I think that’s very sound. Now, many cases don’t have DNA testing available because there is no evidence in the case that would be subject to such testing ...

... I think there should be a moral certainty standard, which I apply to myself. If I don’t have in these cases a confession or physical evidence, if I don’t have that even higher standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, I’m willing and do commute. But once that standard is established in my own mind – and this is not easy, because you’re dealing with another human being – if that standard is applied, I with no hesitation can deny clemency, because I believe if we love and elevate human life -- that means innocent human life -- for those who would intentionally, with malice, with violence, take another human being’s life, that person has forfeited the right to live."

According to a poll (2001) 80% of the americans favor the death penalty in McVeigh’s case (16% were oppose). An interesting fact is that 23% of these 80% consist of people who generally oppose the death penalty. Source: www.gallup.com

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