DEL.ICIO.USNichols prosecutor’s closing words: ‘He is vicious’
Defendant was not delusional, district attorney says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Prosecutors ended the Brian Nichols case like they started — by playing a blood-curdling recording Wednesday of two loud gunshots and the shrieks of a woman who saw Nichols kill a judge and a stenographer in a Fulton County courtroom.
After six weeks of testimony, lawyers argue the killings were either the product of a sick mind — according to the defense — or a vengeful one.
Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com
Benches in the Atlanta Municipal Court room were packed Wednesday as closing arguments were presented in the Brian Nichols trial.
Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com
Kiley Barnes, a daughter of slain Judge Rowland Barnes, cries as she sits in the courtrooom with her sister, Holly Ditmar.
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“It didn’t have anything to do with insanity — or delusion,” Prosecutor Clint Rucker told jurors when asking them to reject Nichols defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. “The defendant was angry and he was frustrated. He is cold-blooded. He is vicious. He is remorseless. And he is extremely, extremely dangerous.”
Nichols, 36, contends his delusion of leading a “slave revolt” against an unjust justice system caused him to escape from custody on March 11, 2005 by viciously beating his guard, taking her gun and killing the judge who was presiding over his rape trial and his court reporter.
Nichols, at the time, was facing his second trial in the rape case. The first jury had not been able to decide whether he had raped his former girlfriend.
Mark Cunningham, a defense psychologist, contends Nichols was deluded and believed he was leading the revolt when he fled the Fulton County Courthouse, shot and killed a pursuing deputy, carjacked and assaulted several people and killed an off-duty federal agent that night.
Rucker reminded jurors that Nichols shot both Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes — whom Nichols called the “slave master” in his confession to police — and Julie Ann Brandau, the court reporter. The prosecutor focused on Brandau to attack Nichols’ claim that delusions were to blame.
“When you ask this defendant, ‘Why did you shoot the court reporter? She wasn’t a slave master’ … he really doesn’t have any answer,” Rucker said. “This delusional compulsion story has so many holes, it looks like a piece of cheese.”
In addition to Barnes and Brandau, Nichols is accused of killing Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and David Wilhelm, a U.S. Customs agent. He also confessed to beating Deputy Cynthia Hall, who was left brain-damaged.
Defense lawyer Josh Moore aimed his rhetoric at Rucker, claiming the prosecutor was trying to “cloud the issue” of mental health and undermine Nichols’ claim by misrepresenting delusional-compulsion illness, which “waxes and wanes.”
“This is a case about a broken mind,” Moore told jurors. “The just verdict in this case is not guilty by reason of insanity. I say the ‘just verdict’ because it will not be an easy verdict.”
Jurors are expected to deliberate Thursday. To find Nichols not guilty they would have to decide he couldn’t tell right from wrong.
Moore told the jury it also had the option of finding “guilty but mentally ill,” which would allow Nichols to get treatment in prison.
Moore noted that Nichols’ lawyer in the rape trial believed that Nichols was mentally ill, although not legally insane. Moore also cited testimony by the former girlfriend that she had never seen such bizarre behavior by Nichols in their seven-year relationship before he took her prisoner and raped her.
Even the psychiatrist who testified for prosecutors, Dr. Robert Phillips, said Nichols was mentally ill although he didn’t diagnose him as delusional.
Rucker contended Nichols fabricated stories to explain his confrontations but riddled them with inconsistencies. Nichols called Barnes both a slave master and a good man and fair judge in his statement to police. Nichols claims he shot Teasley because the deputy was ” an assistant to the slave master,” Rucker said.
“That is a bunch of bull,” Rucker told the majority African-American jury. “It’s just offensive for this man to come in here, this court of law, trying to avoid responsibility by convincing you all that he was a slave.”
Rucker contended Cunningham, the defense psychologist, as an advocate who forced facts to fit his testimony that Nichols suffered from a delusional compulsion. Rucker used Nichols own words against him by reading letters in which Nichols outlined his plans to fool authorities if he escaped or jurors if went to trial.
“My goal is a not guilty verdict,” Rucker read from one of Nichols letters to a girlfriend. “All I need is the right people on the jury and I can go home.”
The prosecutor looked at the jurors.
“I ask you again, ‘Are you the right people?’” Rucker asked.”I don’t think so.”
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