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American Morning

McVeigh's Lawyers Appeal Matsch Verdict

Aired June 07, 2001 - 10:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now we want to take you to Denver, where our Susan Candiotti is standing by. She's got some more developing news in the Timothy McVeigh case out there -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Leon.

Yes, Leon, the first step has now been taken by McVeigh's lawyers to get the appeals process moving. They are right now at the district court of appeals, and it's really a formality, but have now filed their notice of appeal with the district court that is the trial court.

Once they're through doing that -- it'll take about 10 minutes or so to go through the procedure -- one of the lawyers, Christopher Tritico, will walk across the street here, to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, where their brief will be filed with this court.

We are told that it is relatively short; it is less than 20 pages long. They will try to make their best possible argument before this court, to try to get a stay of execution for Timothy McVeigh.

Now once they are through filing their brief, they do intend to walk down the steps you see behind me and speak to us about what their plan is -- Leon.

HARRIS: Susan, since all of the principles -- the judge and the lawyers -- are all right there in the same location -- in the same building, even -- do they expect to have some sort of response or some finality on this today?

CANDIOTTI: That's entirely possible, because this court does tend to work very, very quickly. Once the paperwork is filed, it is very likely to be distributed among three of the judges who sit on the circuit court of appeals. They will review the paperwork, either separately or together. They can speak with each other in person or on the telephone.

And then they could decide a few things. They could decide to ask the U.S. government to file a response. The government could file a response on its own. But none of that has to take place. Also this court could decide to hold a hearing on it. That's what McVeigh's lawyers would very much like, but there's no guarantee that they will get a hearing. Nevertheless, this court has handled a number of high profile cases and is used to working on deadline. They've done something in little as a few hours, we are told, by the clerk of this court. So it is entirely possible we could hear something by day's end, but it's not necessarily the case.

HARRIS: Understood, understood.

I may be pushing it here, Susan, but I've got to ask you: Any idea how soon you may see the lawyers come out and speak to you?

CANDIOTTI: It will take them about 10 minutes or so to finish up what they're doing across the street at the district court, and then they literally have to walk across the street to go up here, file additional paperwork -- a few more minutes -- we'll see them as soon as they're through doing all of that.

HARRIS: We'll be seeing you then, when that does happen, because we will cover that live -- just want to advise the audience who's watching right now we'll have that for you live when it does happen.

Thanks, Susan Candiotti, in Denver, we'll get back to you then.

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