In June of 1997, a federal jury convicted Timothy McVeigh of the bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building that left 168 dead -- 19 of them children, more than 500 injured and a nation heartbroken.

This Wednesday, McVeigh was supposed to be executed by lethal injection, but those plans suddenly changed when it was revealed that the F.B.I. failed to turn over 3,135 pages of documents connected with the case to McVeigh’s lawyers. As a result, Attorney General John Ashcroft was forced to delay the execution until June 11th, so that McVeigh’s legal team could properly review the missing documents in question.

Did the F.B.I. have a hard time managing this high-profile antiterrorism case, or were they choosing to withhold information? According the New York Times, the F.B.I. sent out an order to their 56 field offices in December to “clear the books.” At that point, F.B.I. bureau archivists were supposed to check each document against a master list. Somewhere along the line, the F.B.I. overlooked 3,000+ documents that were not previously accounted for.

Now as McVeigh’s lawyers scramble to find technicalities in these papers that could prolong his execution date even further, the F.B.I. is being put under the political microscope. According to Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley from Iowa, "I think there's a management culture here that's at fault. I call it a ‘cowboy culture.’ It's kind of a culture that puts image, public relations and headlines ahead of the fundamentals of the F.B.I."

While McVeigh's guilt is not in question, some Senators are citing that any suppression of evidence against McVeigh could constitute a crime. What do you think of the way in which the F.B.I. handled the McVeigh case? Do you think there needs to be a review of the organization? Do these circumstances affect your opinion of whether McVeigh should or should not be executed?