Nicholas Kittrie

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"Was Timothy McVeigh an American terrorist, a psycopathic killer, an insane and reckless fanatic, or a patriot gone wrong?" asks author and law professor Nicholas Kittrie, in his book, "Rebels With A Cause: The Minds and Morality of Political Offenders." McVeigh's father himself called Kittrie six weeks ago and talked to him about people who have resorted to violence and other means of protest in the U.S. Bill McVeigh was particularly curious about the family backgrounds of offenders.

Kittrie will be online Monday, June 11, at 11 a.m. EDT, to discuss the McVeigh case and how he should be remembered and judged.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Nicholas Kittrie: The main thing that remains to be said with regard to McVeigh's activities and execution is the fact that by and large the American public as well as his jury never really understood his mindset, never really understood his motive. And in order to benefit from this event first, it is important in order to understand this tragic event, it is important to address ourselves to the motive and the question of why somebody with that kind of middle American background and military experience would resort to something which ended up being a mass murder.

Washington, D.C.: What exactly did Timothy McVeigh's father have to say to you?

Nicholas Kittrie: He said I have heard about your book and I understand you specialize in these kinds of issues and I would like just some understanding from you why people do these kinds of things and I don't know if he had the book in front of him when he called or whether he was relying on what people had told him. He said, however, I'd like to know what the background of some of these people who have done similar things has been. My impression was that in a certain way he was seeking to determine whether there was something in the upbringing, in the family relationships that accounted for this activity. It was almost a desire to determine whether the family life and structure had something to do with this final outcome.

Menasha, Wisc.:
Do you think that justice was truely served by killing the one person who may have information about the possible involvemnet of others in the bombing and, who after time, may have given this information to the public?

Nicholas Kittrie: I don't think it's a question of justice but a question of utility. Would it have been in the public interest to keep; him alive in order to obtain that kind of information? In my own opinion, the authorities must have been pretty much convinced that he was not going to give them any information and that there might not be any evidence of a greater conspiracy. But I would like to say, was it just to do it? I do not believe that one's life ought to be taken in order to serve some other public purpose. If one is to be punished in a certain way, it ought to be that one earned that right to be treated by what he or she has done.

Frazier Park, California: Will we be seeing more Federal Government “mistakes” in reciprocal discovery because without wiretaps of the government offices or testimony from government witnesses malice is unprovable and evidence is of little value unless it directly exonerates the defendant?

Nicholas Kittrie: In a case of this type where so many government resources were devoted to this case, with all the actors on the part of the government, it's no surprising that some evidence either gets misplaced by design or just by bureaucratic oversight.

Arlington, Va.: Sir,
What was your answer to McVeigh's father?

Nicholas Kittrie: My answer really was to refer him my book, Rebels With A Cause: The Minds and Morality of Political Offenders, and indeed in this book, which came out last year, I have a whole chapter (Chapter 3) which is called "Only Sparks Fly High: The Making of the Political Offender." And in many ways I view Timothy McVeigh as a political offender. One who has done wrong or gone to an extreme. And in this chapter there's an extremely long description of various cases in American life and cases throughout the world describing who the political offender is, what his or her social and economic background is, and also describing something I think is very closely related to the McVeigh situation and that is the description of the "seminal event," describing really the kind of person who is going through life, not receiving what they expect to receive, feeling that government and those in authority do not listen to them and then comes the seminal even -- something which provides the trigger for their own explosion. And obviously the seminal event in this case is well-known and has been talked about at great length. And that event is the deadly assault on the Branch Davidians in 1993. In fact, in the book, although I talk about many political offenders in American and other history, including John Brown of Kansas and Harper's Ferry ... and then when I get to Timothy McVeigh, I say that he viewed the federal government's massive and deadly assault upon the Branch Davidians as a clarion call for his transformation from a mere dissident into a direct resistance fighter.

Vienna, Va.: How does McVeigh rank in all the political offenders you know about?

Nicholas Kittrie: I afraid that his ranking, in the final analysis, is much less of a political offender with whom we share some sympathy. He really is more of a political terrorist than a political offender who possibly has fought for a good cause.

Washington, D.C.: I am totally for the death penalty in this case. He certainly died much more humanely than did those who were killed in the bombing! Isn't this a testimony to everyone out there who may think that they can do whatever they want and get away with it! I think death by lethal injection should be used more widespread as the death penalty for killers. We (the U.S.)should have zero tolerance for this type of crime as well as many others, and the decision to do so shouldn't stem from how catastrophic the incident is nor should it be based on the number of people that were affected by it. Simply put, zero tolerance means zero tolerance.

Nicholas Kittrie: I think part of the question deals with whether or not we should have captial punishment. I am not one who denies the right of the state to take the life of convicted offenders. To go a step further, if the state has the right to recruit innocent young people and send them overseas to be killed, it certainly has the right to take young people who have grossly offended against society and members of society by engaging in mass killing.

San Bruno, Calif.: What legal changes have taken place since the killings which would make it more difficult for terrorists to gather the necessary materials to manufacture the type of bomb used?

Nicholas Kittrie: Since the coming of the new administration, one of the questions that has gotten great attention and a lot of resources have been given to them is the question of how can we best defend ourselves against terrorists domestically. The Department of Defense, the FBI and FEMA are in competition with each other to get more funds in order to do better surveillance and better protect us against domestic terrorists. In the past, we thought that terrorists had to come from abroad. In the past we thought that terrorism existed mostly overseas and it had to imported into the U.S. The McVeigh case is a clear indication that disappoointed people who do not feel they've gotten their proper role in society may resort to violence because they think that it's the whole "system" that is inadequate and is against them.

Burke, Va. Seeing Tim McVeigh on "60 Minutes" I was struck by how thoughtful and intelligent he appeared. Is this your impresssion as well? If so, what drives a man to do what he did? Do you have any insight as to what caused him to assert his right to be different in such a destructive (and self destructive) way?

Nicholas Kittrie: My thought is that indeed you had a thoughtful person in him. All you have to do is to consider the detailed arrangements he made for his own execution and who should be there and who should not be that you had a person with a thinking mind. Unfortunately, there was a combination of many wrong developments in his life. After his military service which was very successful, he thought that a military career was right for him. But that did not materialize. Obviously he was not flexible enough. Flexible both mentally and socially to take the good qualities he had and go in a different direction other than being in the military. By and large, I believe that Timothy McVeigh demonstrates what the typical example of political offenders are. He was a disappointed young man who learned in the Army that winning a war practically by any means you can use is right. When he applied this logic against his own countrymen and women and was ready to have them die merely because he thought that the government needed some kind of a message ... that's when he came to verge of insanity. He reached a conclusion that his ends justified any mean.

Boston, Mass.: Timothy McVeigh seemed to be very unremorseful. His last words basically said that he knows what he did, does not care, has never shed a tear, held his head up high, and basically that no punishment can ever affect him because he is the master of his fate. With this in mind, do you agree that the Death Penalty used in this case was pointless because to McVeigh, this was no punishment?

Nicholas Kittrie: I think the question of punishment has to be looked at in two separate ways. A, does the person who's being punished view it as punishment and B, does the public view it as punishment? There's not doubt in this case that the public does view it as punishment, so therefore, his execution gives the public a sense that the scales of justice have been evened. There's also a question whether his execution is likely to deter other people from doing the same. With regard to that, I have serious doubts because people who engage in this kind of behavior are very unique and it's very difficult to deter them. But I think that the notiion of punishment which the German philosopher Emanauel Kant articulated basically says punishment should not be for the purpose of deterrrence, but should be for the purpose of doing justice for the purpose of having the scales of justice evened.

USA: Mr. Kittrie,
In your opinion, does the legal process offer sufficient alternatives to violent protest when the government is being held accountable for its behavior? In other words, if I blame Janet Reno for the disaster at Waco, can I pursue her personally (legally, I mean) for the decision that resulted in so many unnecessary deaths? If not, what are the legal avenues for ordinary citizens who want to hold the govt. accountable for its actions? I perceive a conflict of interest in using legal measures to confront the government (i.e. the legal apparatus IS the government). Am I wrong?

Nicholas Kittrie: My sense is that increasingly we are given the opportunity through the legal process in the U.S. to address situations where we believe that individual and group rights are being abused. I would not be one of those who say, like Justice Fortas, who used to be on the Supreme Court, that one can obtain through regular, legitimate means all the rememdies that are needed and receive them in speedy manner. One needs to remember that in the District of Columbia, about four or five years ago, members of the City Council lead at that time by a woman mayor, went down into the street adjacent to the council headquarters and disrupted traffic for a long period of time. This we call civil disobedience and in the U.S. civil disobedience is a form of political offending which is quite acceptable, that is, we do believe that from time to time, in order to get the proper response from the authorities, you may need to nudge them, the authorities. The question is how do we prevent people from going to extreme responses.

Washington, D.C.: Currently, there are federal sentencing guidelines that dictate the severity of sentences that federal judges can impose, but they do not apply to the death penalty. In light of all the recent debate regarding potential racism inherent in the federal death penalty scheme, should guidelines be imposed?

Nicholas Kittrie: Let me answer this with reference to the McVeigh case. In this case, under the federal sentencing guidelines, the decisiion that the death penalty should be imposed was made by the jury, not the judge. Generally, we count on juries to express the more direct responses of the "people." In this case, the enormity of the cime and the fact that McVeigh displayed no remorse were probably the major reasons for imposing the death penalty on him. As far as the basic issue in the question, I do agree that there's a very extremely high percentage of offenders of color who are found on death row calls for immediate review and analysis because that high percentage smacks of discrimination.

Gullsgate, Minn.: If what point does revenge become justice? When is the act of killing justified when it perpetuates killing in order to seek justice?

Nicholas Kittrie: In determining what sentence should be imposed on an offender, the judge or the jury may consider the following question: Is the person in question dangerous to the community and are they likely to repeat that crime and therefore we need to incapacitate them? Either take their life, keep them forever in prison or whatever. One may want to impose a sentence in order to deter other people from committing a similar crime. You may want to impose a sentence because you believe the offender can be rehabilitated and thereby not commit the crime again. But the traditional, the oldest and the most common objective given for punishment is that of justice. But justice indeed can mean a variety of things. Quite often it stands for retribution. We don't like to use that term because it appears to be cruel and old-fashioned. Quite often and in the federal sentencing guidelines, they use instead the term "just dessert." The truth is that justice, just dessert and retribution are pretty much all the same. And I would say that that motivation or objectivbe still predominates in the law of this country.

Bloomington, Ind.: Do you think McVey believed that his punhiment was just? Do you think it her knew what the possible repercussions were of this terrible event in American history. That is, was he able to comprehend that this action could lead to the end of his own life?

Nicholas Kittrie: I think this is a very, very important question. I do not believe that he fully realized the kind of massacre he was likely to cause. He was too carried away by his mission. As far as did he justify in his own mind the punishment imposed on him, my sense is that he responded to this not as a civilian but as a military man. You got to war, you try to kill as many of the enemy as you can and if the enemy kills you, that's what you should've expected. I think in this connection, I want to stress that the question as to what his motive was, that is, what was him mindset, what was this all about, that these very searching questions were never raised in the courtroom. He insisted with his lawyers in the beginning that he wanted to raise what is an uncommon legal defense, the defense of "necessity." He wanted to argue that the situation and government misconduct in the U.S. were such that it was necessary for him to step forth and admonish the government. His lawyers did not like that at all. His lawyers convinced him not to raise this basic question. Instead, they presented the argument to the jury that there was not enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to find him guilty. They based the defense on insufficienty of fact.

Washington, D.C.: Perhaps what is most disturbing about the execution is the nation's obsession with murdering another human being. It seems that high profile capital punishment cases, have in some ways, turned into a circus, similiar to the manner the death penalty was administered when public hangings was the preferred method. What is your view on the victims' families being able watch the execution?

Nicholas Kittrie: Our country is obsessed, not so much with heroism, that is, who is really a proper public hero as it is occupied with notoriety. Notoriety basically means you are known because you are known. You become notorious by something important you do or you become notorious by something terrible you do. Once you become notorious because maybe you assassinated an important political leader or caused the death of 168 men, women and children -- once you become notorious, the public cannot have enough of you. I am sure that information about McVeigh's diet and menu would have followed by thousands of people. Regarding the specific comment as to whether our preoccupation with unnatural death, that is death by murderers or killings by government, have become a preoccupation. Indeed, there's too much of an American preoccupation with violence generally. We have to face the preoccupation because indeed violence breeds violence and when the violence is given a lot of attention by mass media, we must be concerned with the consequences.

Nicholas Kittrie: Having followed the McVeigh case, having had the brief conversation with the father of McVeigh, I proceeded to say to myself that given the fact that there is much to be learned from this case, much which may help in the prevention of similar conduct, I set out to go and see Timothy McVeigh in person. Accordingly I wrote to him, I wrote to the warden of the penitentiary, I wrote to the director of the Federal Bureau of Prison and I wrote to the Attorney General of the U.S. Whether they all receieved by letter or not, I do not know. One response I received as a form letter from the Attorney General. That letter was not responsive to my inquiry and merely assured me that the prosecution and the sentence would follow the principles of due process. As a consequence, I never saw Timothy McVeigh and I'm sorry to say that many questions which have been raised in this discussion and many other questions in the minds of many people will remain forever unanswered.

washingtonpost.com:

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