BRIAN NICHOLS TRIAL: PSYCHOLOGIST CALLS HIM DELUSIONAL

Mark Cunningham, a forensic psychologist, spent a full day testifying that Brian Nichols was insane when he killed four people on March 11, 2005, in what has become known as the Fulton County Courthouse shootings.

Nichols has confessed to police that he killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and, later that day, Brian Wilhelm, an off-duty federal agent. Cunningham, a witness for the defense, says Nichols killed his victims because he thought he was conducting a just war. Nichols knew he was breaking the law but he couldn’t stop himself, the psychologist said.

Here is a breakdown of the psychological testimony:

> What is the illness? Delusional disorder or DSM-IV-TR 297.1 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association’s reference book. People with this disorder have a delusion that does not manifest itself through hallucinations or disorganized thinking, Cunningham said. On the contrary, a person with it would appear normal in most aspects of life and be able to act expeditiously and logically but still be consumed by a delusion. In Nichols’ case, the delusion was that he was leading a slave rebellion against a modern system of slavery, the prison system, and against a political system that had genocidal designs on black people, Cunningham said. Some aspects of Nichols’ delusions could be viewed as extremist political views if found in other people, the psychologist said. Nichols wasn’t espousing an extremist ideology, the psychologist said, but “crazy” beliefs peculiar to him.

> When did the disease manifest itself? Cunningham said Nichols probably always carried kernels of the disease inside his psyche and compared them to polyps in a colon that later become malignant tumors. He found evidence of this in Nichols’ sophomore college writings that romanticized violent rebellion against racism. The psychologist said the first crack in Nichols’ mind occurred when he kidnapped and raped his former girlfriend. Before that he was, at least outwardly, a nice guy who cheated on his girlfriend. It was while awaiting trial in the abysmal conditions of the Fulton County jail that he went “from extreme beliefs to actual psychotic acts” and killed people associated with the justice system.

> How did it affect Nichols? Nichols became convinced there was an organized genocidal campaign against black people in the United States, and that black males were unfairly imprisoned for lengthy sentences to keep them from having children. Nichols believed the prison system was a modern version of slavery, carried out by the descendants of 19th-century slave owners, Cunningham said. Nichols saw the jail and justice system as set up to feed the prison-slave system and Barnes as his “slave master.” Nichols saw himself as “the people’s champ” who could free African-Americans by changing this genocidal, prison-slavery system with his single blow struck at the Fulton County Courthouse.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Delusional disorder is not one [mental illness] well understood or commonly identified by the public.” MARK CUNNINGHAM, forensic psychologist testifying for Brian Nichols

LOOK AHEAD

Prosecutors will question Nichols’ psychologist today to test the strength of his conclusions.