An Irresistible Case

Joe Hartzler Always Relished the big-time cases. As one of Chicago's hottest federal prosecutors in the 1980s, he put away Puerto Rican terrorists and corrupt public officials, winning over juries with his Boy Scout's demeanor and first-rate legal mind. In 1989, as Hartzler parlayed his success into a job with a prestigious private firm, he visited a doctor about the strange weakness in his legs. The diagnosis was multiple sclerosis, the neurological disease that would eventually rob him of his ability to walk. Hartzler took stock and realized that he missed government service and wanted more time with his family. In 1991 he returned to the U.S. Attorney's Office, in slower-paced Springfield, Ill., where he could nail bad guys and still coach his son's Little League team.

That was before last April 19. As he listened in his car to radio accounts of the Oklahoma City bombing, its enormity sank in. When he heard that Attorney General Janet Reno was looking for prosecutors, Hartzler, 44, decided he had one more big case left in him. "Whoever did this should spend some time in hell," he told a local defense attorney. "I just want to accelerate that process."

Hartzler will get his chance. Reno selected him to head up the eight-member government team expected this week to indict Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the only two suspects in custody. Casting is everything in a major trial. So with dozens of attorneys available for the grueling assignment, why Hartzler? Some suggested that a wheelchair-bound prosecutor would appeal to a jury in a case with so many maimed victims. Others saw a malleable personality easily micromanaged by superiors in Washington.

Federal officials say they see something else in Hartzler: an attorney with superb trial skills and an evenhanded style that will wear well with a jury, especially against the proverb-spouting theatrics of Mike Tigar, Nichols's lawyer. And in a case in which McVeigh's counsel, Stephen Jones, is likely to portray his client as a misunderstood Persian Gulf veteran victimized by a heavy-handed federal government, Hartzler's all-American persona-he was honored at the White House in May as MS Father of the Year--is attractive to Justice Department officials. "He's a levelheaded guy who's got his priorities right," said one top Reno aide. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who met Hartlzer when they worked at a Washington law firm two decades ago, calls him an "incredibly nice guy who'd go over well in the heartland."

Hartzler also comes to the case with a reputation for pulling together the strands of complex and politically sensitive criminal investigations. In 1985 he prosecuted members of FALN, a Puerto Rican nationalist group that killed five people in a nine-year bombing spree. The collegial Hartzler smoothed over the turf fights that often leave federal agents and prosecutors at each other's throats. "When the eyes of the world are upon you, it takes a special type of person to bring out the best in people," says former Chicago prosecutor Jeremy Margolis.

But is he up to the job? While stress and heat can aggravate MS, medical experts say Hartzler shouldn't have a problem if he takes reasonable precautions. Friends say that Hartzler, who declined to talk to NEWSWEEK, was Serious about reordering his life. But author Greg Smith, who has known him for $0 years, said he's "always had an ambivalent relationship to the fast track . . . The Oklahoma case came along and he saw this as a second chance at the brass ring."

Much of America thinks Hartzler has an open-and-shut case. He knows better. Hartzler must decide whether to cut deals for potentially damning testimony from witnesses like McVeigh's friend Mike Fortier--or risk trying to sell a largely circumstantial case to a jury. Fortier's lawyer, Michael McGuire, told NEWSWEEK that negotiations with the government have reached a standstill and that a deal is "unlikely." One source dose to the case says the government is now leaning strongly toward charging Fortier--alleged to have helped McVeigh move stolen weapons from Kansas to Arizona last December --with "peripheral" involvement in the bombing.

One player who has come to terms with the government is McVeigh's sister Jennifer. She'll testify about letters she received from her brother in which he alluded to plans for a violent attack on the government. Hartzler realizes that the stakes are high. Springfield defense attorney Brian Otwell spoke with him recently about the huge expectations. "It's the kind of case you have nightmares about," Otwell remembers telling him. He said that Hartzler agreed. But Joe Hartzler might have lost more sleep had he decided to pass on the case of a lifetime.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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