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 (EDITOR'S NOTE: the Barron precedent was superseded 35 years later by the 14th Amendment) This separation of sovereignty is seen with the separate Federal and State trials of convicted Oklahoma City bombing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 other small explosive devices. The government also imposed new firearms restrictions in 1994 that McVeigh believed threatened his livelihood. McVeigh dissociated himself from his boyhood friend Steve Hodge by sending him a 23-page farewell letter. He proclaimed his devotion to the United States Declaration of Independence, explaining in detail what each sentence meant to him. McVeigh declared that: McVeigh felt the need to personally reconnoiter sites of rumored conspiracies. He visited Area 51 in order to defy government restrictions on photography and went to Gulfport, Mississippi to determine the veracity of rumors about United Nations operations. These turned out to