OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING CASE Nichols' jury resumes deliberation

Emotional closing arguments ended Wednesday.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
McALESTER, Okla. -- Jurors in the state murder trial of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols were to resume deliberations today to decide whether to give him the death penalty or sentence him to life imprisonment.
Jurors appeared drawn and tense as they filed into the courtroom about 6:10 p.m. Wednesday, just before State District Judge Steven Taylor sent them to dinner and their motel for the night.
The panel of six men and six women deliberated for about six hours Wednesday after getting the case shortly before noon after closing arguments.
Nichols, who is serving a federal life imprisonment term for the bombing, faces 161 counts of murder in state district court. The same jury convicted him after deliberating about three hours May 26 after a trial that lasted less than two months.
State prosecutors and Nichols' defense wrapped up emotional closing arguments in the punishment phase of the trial Wednesday -- with lead prosecutor Sandra Howell-Elliott and defense attorney Creekmore Wallace shedding tears.
The state depicted Nichols as a cold-blooded terrorist who deserved death. Indeed, throughout the trial, they sought to elevate Nichols' status from role player to mastermind -- an equal to bomber Timothy McVeigh in the scheme to attack the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.
Defense attorneys, meanwhile, urged jurors to spare Nichols' life, portraying him as a family man who found religion, reading his Bible and praying incessantly.
Nichols and McVeigh, former Army buddies, were accused of delivering a 7,000-pound fertilizer and fuel bomb to the front door of the Murrah building. The explosion killed 168 people.
McVeigh was convicted of conspiracy and murdering eight federal law officers killed in the blast. He was executed June 11, 2001.