Psychiatrist: Nichols angry, not deluded

If Brian Nichols were driven by a delusional compulsion when he escaped from the Fulton County Courthouse and killed four people on March 11, 2005, then he wouldn’t have apologized when he was captured the next day and gave a three-hour-long confession.

And, if he were so driven by that same delusion that he couldn’t have controlled his behavior, as a defense psychologist testified last week, then he would not have spared the life of Fulton County sheriff’s Sgt. Grantley White. Nichols encountered White in the chambers of Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes before the accused rapist went into the courtroom and shot and killed Barnes, sitting on the bench.

That was the testimony Wednesday of prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Robert Phillips, who took the stand to counter the testimony by defense psychologist Mark Cunningham that Nichols was insane when he went on his rampage. Nichols has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Cunningham, in three days on the stand, testified that Nichols was suffering from a delusional compulsion and knew he was breaking the law —- but still didn’t know right from wrong —- when he shot Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, Deputy Hoyt Teasley and, later that night in Buckhead, U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm.

The defense psychologist, who was paid $175 an hour to analyze Nichols and testify, said Nichols was acting on his delusional belief that he was a slave and was leading a slave revolt against Barnes.

He testified that Nichols considered Barnes his slave master; that he was at war with the state of Georgia, Fulton County and the U.S. government, and that he only killed people he considered enemy “combatants.”

Under direct questioning by prosecuting attorney Kellie Hill, Phillips, who was paid $475 an hour to consult for the prosecution and $575 an hour to testify, said his analysis showed Nichols was motivated by anger, not delusion. And, if Nichols were delusional —- if he believed, as he said in his confession, that his slave revolt was “noble” and a good cause —- he wouldn’t have apologized.

When Nichols confessed on March 12, 2005, he told Atlanta police Detective Vincent Velazquez: “You know, I do have great remorse. Um, you know I don’t, I didn’t enjoy, I didn’t enjoy killing anyone and, um, you know, I wish I could take it back. Um, I wish I could have, I wish I could have done it another way.”

Phillips said: “If the delusion is being put forward as the rationale for why he did the action, you don’t apologize. If you’re so deluded that what you are doing is right and just, why are you apologizing?”

The psychiatrist testified that, based on his own interview with Nichols and others, and tests performed on Nichols by a prosecution psychologist, he disagreed with the defense psychologist’s determination that Nichols was insane when he went on the killing spree.

He said that Nichols made decisions not to kill people, such as White, and other people whose cars he hijacked during his escape, that he could not have made if he were driven by a delusional compulsion.

“The thing about delusions and mental illness and the way they connect is they don’t just pop up and go away,” testified Phillips. “It’s either a delusional compulsion or it’s not. … He demonstrated the capacity to control his behavior.”

Phillips said he believes that Nichols suffered from alcohol abuse and dependency at the time he was accused of a raping a former girlfriend in August 2004, and that Nichols also exhibits paranoid and anti-social behavior and suffers from depression.

But, clinically, he said, Nichols was not insane then, and he was not insane when he launched his March 11 attack. He testified that Nichols’ alleged rape of his ex-girlfriend, and his threats against a pastor his ex-girlfriend was seeing, do not match up with claims by the defense and Nichols that he was carrying out a slave rebellion.

“They [the attack on his ex-girlfriend and the pastor] don’t fit into this rubric of slave and slave master,” said Phillips. “And ultimately they [the actions] must be drawn into some box clinically.”