Court TV Host: Why is convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh effectively saying he wants to die? As most of you know, McVeigh is asking that he be allowed to drop all of the appeals to his death sentence. Court TV's Tim Sullivan, who covered the Oklahoma City bombing trials of McVeigh and Terry Nichols, will be here to answer all your questions.

Court TV Host: Tim is here. Welcome, Tim!

Tim Sullivan: Hello, good to be back at CourtTv.com

Court TV Host: Let's take the first question from the audience...

warhorse46 asks: What could be the reason that McVeigh would make this decision now?

Tim Sullivan: I don't think we really know. It could be that he doesn't want to sit on death row for several more years while appeals drag on through the courts. He's smart enough to know the appeals are probably hopeless. It's also possible that he misses being in the news. McVeigh has often written letters to reporters in the past, usually when he's dropped out of the news for a while. During the trial of Terry Nichols he wrote a letter claiming that Nichols was really only a minor player in the crime. Maybe he just wants to get a fresh round of publicity.

hehe30141 asks: Is Timothy sorry for what he did?

Tim Sullivan: Well, he's never admitted that he did it -- so he's never said he's sorry. He's done a couple of interviews in which he's implied that he did the bombing, and he has said he regrets that kids were killed, I believe. But I doubt that he's truly sorry. In the death penalty phase, a big part of his defense was that he thought he was doing the right thing, as a soldier. I doubt we'll ever really hear him say he's sorry.

hehe30141 asks: Is Tim isolated?

hehe30141 asks: Does he have any friends?

Tim Sullivan: He was, at last report, in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. Everybody on death row, in most prisons, has a single cell and is locked down most of the day. They take meals alone in their cells, etc. But they get one hour per day, typically, when they can go outside for exercise. It's been widely reported that McVeigh spent his exercise time with Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber. I don't personally know whether that's still the case.

northeast125 asks: What is the crux of the letters he writes to the papers?

Tim Sullivan: He wrote a couple during the Nichols trial. They were essentially, from his point of view, correcting the record of what was being said in court. For example, he disputed the testimony of the state trooper who arrested him after the bombing, implying that the trooper was making the situation sound a lot more dangerous than it was. He's also written letters criticizing the government for the debacle at Waco, and things like that.

wazzzuuuuup1980 asks: Was he ever in the military

Tim Sullivan: He was in the U.S. Army and served in the Persian Gulf War. He was "top gun" in his unit, meaning the best marksman. He was in a few skirmishes in the Gulf, and is known to have killed at least one Iraqi. He was awarded the Bronze Star after the war.

wazzzuuuuup1980 asks: Does he have a criminal background?

Tim Sullivan: No, nothing prior to OK Bomb, except perhaps for speeding tickets, etc.

Blackbandicoot asks: What's Nichols' sentence ?

Tim Sullivan: Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. The jury in his case was deadlocked on a choice between life and death, so the case automatically went to Judge Richard Matsch for sentencing, and the judge gave him life.

roller_skate_skinny asks: Is it unusual for a defendant in a federal death penalty case of such notoriety to ask to have an execution date set?

Tim Sullivan: Yes. It's unusually for anybody to ask, but not unheard of. There are only about a dozen guys on death row in the federal system, so anything they do is unusual. But there have been a handful of others on state death rows who have made this request.

warhorse46 asks: Who is paying for McVeigh`s lawyers?

Tim Sullivan: You are; the taxpayers.

Court TV Host: His lawyer doesn't agree with him? What will that mean?

Tim Sullivan: Right. His lawyers want to keep filing appeals unless they've exhausted all possibilities. Next, there will probably be a competency hearing to see whether McVeigh is smart enough to understand what he's doing by suspending all appeals. I think he will be found competent. Eventually, an execution date will be set and he'll be killed. But that will still take several years. He's reserved his right to seek clemency from the President of the U.S., but don't expect any president to ever grant it. Someday, McVeigh will be executed, and perhaps that's what he wants, thinking it will give him some sort of martyr's status.

warhorse46 asks: Have there been any comments on this request from family members of victims or from victims?

Tim Sullivan: Probably, but I haven't been in touch with victims since this story broke. The victims have always been split on this --- just as the general public is on the death penalty -- some think he should be executed and others think he should have to spend a long life in prison.

KimIsland asks: But what has McVeigh done…has he had his attorneys file anything in writing on his behalf, anything saying that he wants to die?

Tim Sullivan: Yes. His lawyers filed a notice this week informing the trial judge that McVeigh has ordered them not to file any more appeals. They also told the court that they advised against this. They also reserved his right to later ask for clemency and to file an appeal later if the court finds that McVeigh is not competent to have made this decision.

gernyc asks: Has McVeigh's honorable discharge been changed to dishonorable?

Tim Sullivan: I believe it has been, but I'm not 100 percent certain. I recall that prosecutors were making en effort to do this. One interesting aspect of this trial was the fact that the defense called many of his fellow soldiers to testify about what a great soldier McVeigh had been. On the other hand, he dropped out of Green Beret qualifying school and later quit the Army. The prosecutors, of course, always had the soldier-witnesses testify that the first rule of war that a U.S. serviceman is taught is that it is a war crime to kill civilians. Yet McVeigh, the good soldier, killed more than 160 civilians.

wazzzuuuuup1980 asks: Did McVeigh get pulled over on the day he bombed the building and did the police let him go?

Tim Sullivan: No. He got pulled over after the bombing, about 75 miles from OKC, because he was driving a car with no license plates. They then held him because he was also carrying a handgun. Only later did they realize who they had, when they were told by the FBI.

chali99 asks: What's the latest on the possible state trial for Terry Nichols?

Tim Sullivan: The OKC district attorney, Bob Macy, has been removed from the case because he violated a gag order by talking to the media about the case. Macy is the driving force behind the effort for a state trial. The victims, indeed the whole state, is divided on whether there should be a trial. I personally will be surprised if the state trial ever takes place.

pepsicola1987 asks: What age was McVeigh and was he working for anyone?

Court TV Host: Is there anything else to be learned about the bombing and the possible involvement of others?

Tim Sullivan: I think he was 29 at the time... There was very likely a conspiracy somewhat larger than McVeigh and Nichols. Michael Fortier was prosecuted for withholding his knowledge of the crime, and many have long believed he was more involved than he or the government ever admitted. Also, some observers and journalists believe there were three or four others involved in the conspiracy. In his book "Others Unknown" lawyer Stephen Jones, who represented McVeigh at trial, explains his theory of a broad, global conspiracy going back to Saddam Hussein.

KimIsland asks: Well, who was involved or thought to be involved in the conspiracy?

Tim Sullivan: There were a few white supremacists who hung out at a compound in Oklahoma, as Dennis Mahon and Carl Strassmeier, who where suspected by some. Also, the ATF had an informer named Carol Howe, who testified that those two and others apparently knew about the plot. Stephen Jones implicates both Ramzi Yousef and Osama Bin Laden as possible suspects.

chali99 asks: I hear that Gov. Keating is in line to be attorney general in the Bush administration and that he is opposed to a state trial. What do you think?

Tim Sullivan: If Keating is now opposed to it, that would be a change of position. He supported Macy's effort to stage a state trial in the aftermath of the federal trial.

b2000bb asks: Do you think that prison has got to him and he just wants to die to end it all... giving up?

Tim Sullivan: That's a possibility. I also think he must be lonely, and this is a way to get attention again. I suspect that, as the execution date approaches, which could still be several years away, McVeigh will start granting more interviews.

ckris2868 asks: Why didn't Terry N. get the chair?

Tim Sullivan: Because he had a great legal team. McVeigh lead lawyer was Michael Tigar, and his partner was Ron Wood. They had a great jury consultant in Robert Hirschorn. Essentially, they were able to get a lot of people on the jury who were very soft on the death penalty. And they did a remarkable job of raising reasonable doubt as to whether Nichols really knew that McVeigh intended to blow up that particular building and kill that many people. The government's evidence against Nichols was always weak in the area of intent to kill, and this ultimately saved Nichols life.

faham1 asks: What was the reason for McVeigh and others to bomb the federal government building?

Tim Sullivan: Lots of reasons. First, there was a desire on McVeigh's part to get revenge for the killing of 80 people at Waco, Texas. McVeigh saw the Branch Davidians as fellow militia-movement types who were killed by the federal government because they were amassing guns. Also, Mcveigh, Nichols and others subscribed to the militia-type theory that the federal government was the enemy of the people and would take away all of our civil rights, beginning with the right to bear arms. McVeigh was also paranoid, and he believed the feds were conspiring to turn the US over to the UN. The reason they picked that particular building is partly because it was an easy target, and it had been cased by other militia groups earlier. Also, McVeigh apparently believed that Bob Ricks, who commanded the FBI at Waco, had an office in the building (although this proved to be incorrect).

wazzzuuuuup1980 asks: What prison is McVeigh in?

wazzzuuuuup1980 asks: Will he die in Indiana?

Tim Sullivan: I believe he's now in Terre Haute, Indiana on a federal death row, so presumably he'll be executed there. I think that the transfer to Indiana probably ended his palling around with Ramzi Youseft and Kaczynski, since they were all in Colorado together at one time.

TexinSeattle asks: How will he be executed?

Tim Sullivan: The law is that he will be executed by the means used by the state in which he was convicted. That means Colorado, which uses lethal injection.

mochie_04 asks: Why did he want to die in 120 days or less?

Tim Sullivan: I can only guess. But, since his letter is dated mid-December, 120 days would put the date in mid-April, which would coincide with the anniversary of the bombing. The bombing took place on April 19, which is Patriot's Day and is important to the militia movement. Perhaps he wants to die on Patriot's Day, too.

bigjoshsprofile asks: Is there any chance of McVeigh being granted clemency?

Tim Sullivan: I think not, as a practical matter.

Court TV Host: Why did he want to preserve his right to seek clemency?

Tim Sullivan: He probably reserved his right to seek clemency on the advice of his lawyers. It gives him an out later, if he changes his mind about wanting to die. Also, he'd get another round of publicity on the eve of his death by writing to the President.

Court TV Host: And, finally...

warhorse46 asks: How soon could the execution be carried out?

travis2008 asks: So when will Tim be executed?

Tim Sullivan: Nobody knows, since the feds do this so rarely. But I'd estimate that it would happen within the next five to seven years.

Court TV Host: Thanks so much, Tim Sullivan, for joining us online today.