Eric Rudolph was arrested in North Carolina. He is suspected of being responsible for the bomb placed at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996 that killed one person and injured another 100 people. He is also a suspect in the 1998 bombing of the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham, Alabama that killed a police officer and maimed a nurse.

So where will he be tried first, Alabama or Georgia? The decision is going to be up to Attorney General Ashcroft. But Alabama officials are lobbying mightily to have him tried first in Alabama.

"My view is that the Atlanta case depends on the Birmingham evidence. There was nothing to link him to the Atlanta bombing before Birmingham," said former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones.

Jones, who was the top federal prosecutor in north Alabama at the height of the manhunt, said the Janet Reno Justice Department agreed years ago to try Rudolph in Birmingham first because officials felt the evidence here was stronger.

With a new regime in charge at the Justice Department, any prior agreements have been scrapped. Ashcroft has asked prosecutors in Atlanta and Birmingham to submit memos to him to assist him in making the final decision.

We're not sure it makes that much of a difference. The Government will go with the case that has the strongest direct evidence linking Rudolph to the crimes. This isn't like the sniper case where Ashcroft shopped for the forum most likely to impose the death penalty. Since Rudolph will be tried in federal court, the laws and the sentencing guidelines are the same. It would be a black eye for the Government to try him in a jurisdiction and lose. So look for Ascroft to pick the stronger case to try first from an evidentiary standpoint--regardless of which district has the greater emotional investment in a conviction.

The Washington Post has more on the upcoming decision here.

The Justice Department can -- and likely will -- seek the death penalty for Rudolph, regardless of where he is tried.....A Justice Department official said that Ashcroft will base his decision on where to try Rudolph first on the strength of the evidence in all the cases. "Where do we have the strongest evidence?" he said.

The Post also examines whether Rudolph was a "Christian Terrorist."

The question is not just whether Rudolph is a terrorist, or whether he considers himself a Christian. It is whether he planted bombs at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub to advance a religious ideology -- and how numerous, organized and violent others who share that ideology may be.