Double Jeopardy Clause (Barron v. City of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243), and the double jeopardy therein forbidden is a second prosecution under authority of the federal government after a first trial for the same offense under the same authority. (EDITOR'S NOTE: the Barron precedent was superseded 35 years later by the 14th Amendment) This separation of sovereignty is seen with the separate Federal and State trials of convicted Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh were tried and convicted in Federal Court, with Nichols sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole, and McVeigh sentenced to death
Timothy McVeigh he did not believe in a hell and that science is his religion. In June 2001, a day before the execution, McVeigh wrote a letter to the "Buffalo News" identifying himself as agnostic. However, he took the Last Rites, administered by a priest, just before his execution. Father Charles Smith ministered to McVeigh in his last moments in death row. McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge against the government for the sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge. McVeigh visited Waco during the standoff. While there, he was interviewed by student reporter Michelle Rauch, a senior journalism major at Southern