Posted on 03/14/2005 2:58:53 AM PST by JohnHuang2
In Atlanta, Brian Nichols, 6 feet tall and a couple hundred pounds, was being escorted by a female officer, without cuffs, into court for his rape trial, when he grabbed her gun, shot her, the judge, the court reporter and, later, a deputy and a Customs agent.
Why wasn't he wearing handcuffs? Because "studies" have shown that jurors are "unfairly influenced" when a person on trial is wearing handcuffs. The "study," it can be safely assumed, was conducted by somebody who doesn't have to sit anywhere near defendants in rape and murder trials.
A jury wasn't even seated in the courtroom when the cuff-free Nichols snapped, so there are still a lot of unanswered questions. The answers to which will probably contain a phrase such as "self esteem maintenance."
After the shootings, Nichols fled and was later captured. At his next trial, Nichols will be accompanied by much more security than before. PC will perhaps, again, dictate that he not be cuffed. Instead, Nichols will be surrounded by a dozen heavily armed officers and six attack dogs – anything to avoid the sight of handcuffs unfairly influencing the jury.
By the way, the shootings occurred after Nichols, just a day earlier, tried to smuggle two homemade knives into the courtroom. The next day, still no cuffs.
Political correctness is nothing new to those places where the PC disease is terminal – the large college campus, and anywhere in the public sector. Quite often, level of stupidity in political correctness is so high that it's comical. This time, it's anything but. When PC strikes the college campus, young minds are poisoned. When PC strikes the public sector, including the courtroom, people can get killed.
How will this shooting be handled? Right now, roundtable meetings are taking place. These shootings are being studied in detail, and politicians and activists of all sorts are putting the heat on the FBI, police, security experts and others to find ways to prevent this from happening in the future – without cuffing defendants. Leave it to the bearers of political correctness to remove the cuffs from criminals, and tie the hands of everybody else.
There are two ways to address situations such as this: Business as usual, or a reassessment of procedures. From the PC end of things, it will be "business as usual." This tragic incident will not change how defendants are treated in court. From a procedural standpoint, what will happen is a call for more funding for holster technology research.
Police and security holsters have two or three separate steps involved in order to remove a weapon. Brian Nichols obviously was familiar with these steps, or else the weapon wasn't properly secured by the security officer.
Defendants will not be cuffed in court, but the holsters will be made so tough to get into that the officer will need a masters in physics and 15 minutes in order to remove the weapon. An unfortunate lesson throughout history, however, is that scumbags are often a step or two ahead of the rest of us on some issues. Nowhere does the old phrase "Necessity is the mother of invention" apply more than to desperate criminals, who will figure out how any holster works before many officers are able to.
Good luck now finding jurors for Nichols' next trial who haven't heard of this story, not to mention ones who are going to want to be in the same room with him when he's not wearing handcuffs.
A dangerous person in court, not wearing handcuffs so it won't "influence the jury" may have the reverse effect, and actually be detrimental to the defendant. PC bureaucrats, civil-rights leaders and liberal lawyers need to understand that (pause for laughter).
Brian Nichols wasn't handcuffed, and he's killed people as a result. In a politically correct quest to not influence a jury, the jury in Nichols' coming trial has been greatly influenced – and not in a good way for the likes of Mr. Nichols. So, for those who think that no cuffs in court is more fair for the defendant, consider this: Brian Nichols now faces the death penalty, instead of 20 or so years for the original crime, and four people are dead. Would making him wear handcuffs to, in, and from court have been better for him, or worse for him?
PC do-gooders assisted Brian Nichols in ruining what was left of his life, and gave him the means to destroy many others – all in the name of "fairness." I'm sure the families of the victims will thank them for caring.
I, and other conservative people who live in the REAL world, and not some liberal La-La Land, connected the dots early on, in previous posts following the savage's violent attacks, murders, and escape.
If you are speaking of ANYONE in the mainstream media (Worldnetdaily.com doesn't qualify) connecting those same dots, it ain't gonna happen. They KNOW what the truth is, but they don't want it to get out, 'cause that would mean real, substantive, negative (for them) changes for the people they so admire - (BARF ALERT) the poor, downtrodden, misunderstood minority "suspects" in our unjust prison system, who just need one more chance.
Call me a liberal, I have come to the conclusion that because he wasn't handcuffed it caused 4 peoples death. Case closed.
Yup. So why wan't he handcuffed?
There are enough facts in in order to exercise sound judgment. Facts: He was released from his handcuffs in order to get dressed when a single armed woman was not enough to prevent him from overpowering her and taking her weapon. That is the fact.
Your insistence on suspending judgment indicates that you have some other motive than exercising sound opinion of a citizen. The tyrrany of expertism makes citizens believe that they shhould not have opinions on ordinary things that are not as complex as claimed. You are wittingly or unwittingly feeding that tyrrany.
No sacasm can be so broad that somebody at FR will not take you seriously...
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
The guy was caught with two homemade knives the day before...it is truly pc politics. Also, Fulton County police dept is very badly run.
I think you mis-read this.
Lack of handcuffs was the the major contributing factor to this crime. 4 people are dead from PC.
There is no need for an investigation to come to this conclusion.
If a juror saw the defendant in hand cuffs it would have been a mistrial.
Some freepers suspected she was not shot and wondered if she was in on his escape.
My suspicion is that his attorney suggested he use that story about the juror seeing him in handcuffs as a way to push for another mistrial.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
That is the problem ! Moronic PC liberalism just killed 4 innocent people. If your lawyer can't overcome the jury seeing you in handcuffs when you are brought into the courtroom on a good defense presentation, you either have a terrible lawyer or are probably guilty. I don't buy that study not one bit, if anything people might feel sorry for you more if they think you are innocent.
I worked for Dept of Corrections here in Northern Louisiana from 1992-1997.
For most of that time, I was a transport officer. We took inmates to court on a very frequent basis. It was standard practice to remove cuffs prior to taking an inmate into the courtroom.
This was in a very rural parish (county) and there was always 2 officers that carried inmates to court. Of course, everyon in the courtroom knew, just by seeing 2 armed uniformed officers there, the guy standing there was an already sentenced to state prison time and was back for a 2nd helping.
There are some other ways for helping restrain the inmate. One is to make the inmate wear a leg brace on 1 leg under his jeans. This will prevent him from running, but just like Chester on Gunsmoke, he can still move pretty fast with the right incentive.
Sun technologies make a "stun belt". This device is placed on the inmate and has a 50K volt power pak that fits over his right kidney. It is activated by remote control and gives him an 8 second ride of his life. But you have to check his medical record and have the Dr. authorize that this device be placed on him.
One thing that never made sense to me (among many others) all inmates in the state of Louisiana have their name and doc # stenciled on both legs of their jeans and on the back of their shirt. We would have to take his cuffs off, but everyone could easily see that he was already in prison.
Thanks cajun - yours is best post on this thread - much appreciate your input.
In your professional opininion, if these standards had been followed in Atlanta, could this monster had broken free?
The same could also be said if everyone had a gun; none of this would have happened.
Handcuffs are not the reason Nichols was able to wreak such havoc. It was because he was guarded by a woman bailiff. Period.
People on trial should be handcuffed. And legcuffed, if called for. I like the cage approach that so many countries use in their court system...you know, where the defendant/s sit in a big cage during the trial.
yes, it is quite possible that he could have. You have to look on Corrections Officers in much the same light as most of today's police officers.
Many are on the lower IQ plane and either get so complacent with such a repetitious and boring job that in many instances, they should just give the inmate a vehicle and send him to court on his own, or they are so gung ho, they make stupid mistakes with their know it all attitude that they get someone hurt or killed.
Also, the American with Disabilities Act is a big detriment in an awful lot of assigned duties. They will put a 60 year old woman with enphezema doing a job that should be assigned to a 20-30 year old man.
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