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November 17, 1995
Web posted at: 12:30 a.m. EST
OKLAHOMA CITY (CNN) -- Bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh will not use an insanity defense at his murder trial for the attack on the Oklahoma City federal building, according to his chief lawyer.
Attorney Stephen Jones told CNN Thursday a defense psychiatric examination indicated that McVeigh is legally sane and competent to stand trial. McVeigh was examined by forensic psychiatrist Seymour Halleck at the University of North Carolina.
Some physical testing remained before the exam was compete, but Jones said he did not expect the sanity findings to change.
McVeigh and former Army buddy Terry Nichols a scheduled to go to trial May 17 on charges of terrorism, murder and conspiracy. The April 19 attack on the federal building took 169 lives. McVeigh and Nichols could face the death penalty if convicted on any of the 11 counts.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The former White House Travel Office director was cleared of embezzlement charges Thursday.
Billy Dale was fired by President Clinton in 1993, after being accused of taking $68,000 in funds related to the news media's travel expenses in covering the events surrounding the president.
A federal jury acquitted Dale in just under two hours. Dale cried when the verdict was announced.
He said the money was used for legitimate press travel expenses and that he didn't want to bill directly to news organizations that were complaining about rising costs.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Defense attorney Leslie Abramson continued her cross-examination Thursday of Dr. Roger McCarthy, the prosecution's final witness in its case-in-chief in the murder trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez .
This is the second trial of the brothers, accused in the 1989 shotgun slayings of their wealthy parents. The first trial ended with hung juries.
McCarthy is an engineer who developed a computer-generated recreation of the slayings. Abramson questioned McCarthy all of Wednesday morning and most of Thursday morning about his interpretation of the first of 12 gunshots fired in the deaths.
McCarthy testified that the first shot alone doesn't indicate whether Jose and Kitty Menendez were sitting or standing. An examination of all 12 shots as a sequence, he said, convinced him it that they would not have been standing for the first shot.
The defense is trying to show that Lyle and Erik reasonably believed they were in imminent danger when they shot their parents. Their contention would be more difficult for a jury to believe if the victims were sitting on a couch when they were shot.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- City housing and fire officials are trying to gloss over more than apartment walls, New York tenants say.
Rosa Kelly's apartment was repainted after a fire tore through 17 floors of a Harlem housing project on November 4. But a fresh coat of paint will not erase her anger. Kelly says that city officials knew that the oil-based paint used in hundreds of project housing was dangerous but did nothing about it.
Officials knew about the hazard of the paint for more than a year but it took the deaths of two people and injuries to dozens of others in similar fires to spark action.
Now the city is repainting the housing project's stairways and halls with a latex-based, flame-retardant paint. The old paint was federally tested and approved, but whether it is especially flammable has not yet been determined. Sources say that the chemical tests have been inconclusive.
Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger is asking the Federal Housing and Urban Development Department to find answers to at least two questions: why the fires happened and why it took the city so long to act.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A ban on most abortions at U.S. military hospitals won approval from the House on Thursday as part of a defense spending bill. The bill next goes to the Senate, where it also is expected to win approval. However, the president may veto it because of other provisions it contains.
The bill would ban abortions at all U.S. military hospitals except in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother. Anti-abortion House Republicans had wanted the only exception to be saving the mother's life.
The main impact of the ban probably would be at military hospitals overseas, where women might not have access to safe alternatives at private facilities.
But Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the House Appropriations Committee's top Democrat, said Clinton's chief of staff, Leon Panetta, told him that Clinton would veto the bill because it contains $7 billion more than the president wants on weapons spending.
The bill would buy parts for more B-2 stealth bombers, a third Cold War-era Seawolf submarine and more planes, ships and other weapons.
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) -- A lawsuit accuses six unions on strike against the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News of using violence and extortion to try to disrupt production and distribution of the papers.
Detroit Newspapers, the company responsible for business operations of the two newspapers, claims that the unions used death threats, racial epithets and graffiti to intimidate. It also charges the unions and their supporters with arson, theft, brandishing weapons, and obstructing vehicles entering and leaving printing plants and distribution centers.
The unions filed their own suit last month alleging Detroit Newspapers conspired with its security and police to harass and intimidate strikers. The strike by 2,500 workers began July 13. The News and Free Press have continued to publish with nonunion workers, replacement workers and former strikers who crossed picket lines.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- In his rage over O.J. Simpson's not guilty verdict, the father of murder victim Ron Goldman is pressing ahead with plans to change the justice system in California. Fred Goldman hopes to form the Ron Goldman Foundation for Judicial Reform, which he hopes will make the legal system "more in tune with victims."
Goldman also plans to travel throughout California to support an initiative on next November's ballot called the Public Safety Protection Act. If approved by voters the initiative would, among other things, allow non-unanimous verdicts in cases that do not involve the death penalty. He's also soliciting money to help pay for attorneys in his wrongful death civil suit against Simpson, with more than $300,000 raised so far. And in an interview with CNN, Goldman denied tabloid newspaper stories suggesting he would try to kill Simpson.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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