NICHOLS GUILTY, BUT...; CONSPIRATOR ACQUITTED OF MURDER.

Byline: Jo Thomas The New York Times

Terry Nichols was convicted Tuesday of conspiring to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, but in a nuanced verdict, a federal District Court jury acquitted him of actually committing what was the worst terrorist act on U.S. soil.

Nichols was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but to the dismay of many relatives of the blast's victims, he was acquitted of the far more serious charge of murder.

Still, the conviction on the conspiracy count could bring Nichols the death penalty, and the jury will convene again Monday to begin hearing evidence and testimony to decide his fate.

After struggling with the case for 41 hours over six days, the jurors drew a distinction between Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted earlier this year on all 11 counts of their joint indictment and sentenced to death.

It was McVeigh, with his single-minded hatred of the federal government, the prosecutors said, who was the prime mover in the plot to explode a Ryder rental truck packed with a homemade witches' brew of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil, killing 168 people, 19 of them children.

Nichols, prosecutors said, was deeply involved in the plan at its beginning in fall 1994. But, defense lawyers argued, in the months before the actual bombing, he had dropped ties to McVeigh and, they insisted, was seeking to ``build a life, not a bomb.''

Tuesday's verdict found Nichols guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, but not guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction and destruction by explosives. In the deaths of the eight federal agents in the federal building, the jury rejected both first- and second-degree murder charges and settled on involuntary manslaughter, which is defined as ``the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.'' This charge could cover a ``lawful act done without due caution, which might produce death.''

From the outset, lawyers from the prosecution and defense had agreed that Nichols, 42, was not in Oklahoma City on the day of the bombing and that it was McVeigh, 29, who took the bomb there and detonated it.

The verdict, which came shortly after 4 p.m., as a winter twilight wrapped Denver's federal courthouse, stunned some families of the victims, who clutched handkerchiefs as the verdict was read and left the courtroom in silence. Nichols' brother, James, who sat in the front row with his parents and sister, said simply, ``It ain't over.''

``I'm angry with the verdict,'' said Jannie Coverdale, whose two small grandsons, Aaron and Elijah, died in the day-care center of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in a case of terrorism that first alerted many Americans to a violent subculture on the far right.

Fighting back tears, Coverdale, who sat through the whole trial, said: ``Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh conspired for seven months to blow up that building. That's not involuntary manslaughter. That's first-degree murder.''

President Clinton said the convictions of McVeigh and Nichols ``should offer a measure of comfort'' to the relatives of the victims.

``I know that no verdict in a court of law can ease the loss of a loved one,'' he said.

Clinton was in a White House Christmas party receiving line when an aide told him of the verdict Tuesday. In a brief written statement, he recalled telling the families of those killed in the April 1995 bombing that America would ``stand by them for as long as it took.''

``The dedicated team of prosecutors and investigators who brought these cases to a successful conclusion have helped to fulfill that promise,'' Clinton said. ``The nation is deeply in their debt.''

After the verdict was read, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch said the penalty hearings for Nichols will begin Monday. Then he sent the jury of seven women and five men home with orders to rest and not to talk with anyone about the decision. In doing so, he warned that ``there will be people who judge your judgments.''

Matsch had refused to include any possible verdict lesser than first-degree murder in his instructions to the McVeigh jury but agreed to tell the Nichols jury that it could consider second-degree murder, which does not involve premeditation, and involuntary manslaughter, in which a foreseeable death results from a lawful act.

In deciding that Nichols was guilty of conspiracy, the jurors also ruled that death was a foreseeable result of the plot and that people died because of it.

As soon as the jury left the room, minutes before 5 p.m., Nichols' lawyer, Michael Tigar, was on his feet, moving for an acquittal. Matsch said he would hear arguments from Tigar and lawyers for the prosecution at 9 a.m. today.

Tigar is expected to argue that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to entertain the possibility of a death sentence for a person who has been convicted of only a secondary role in a conspiracy and has been acquitted of murder.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, box

PHOTO (1 -- color) The April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on American soil.

Associated Press

(2 -- color) Nichols

Box: The verdict at a glance