1/31/2008
Brian Nichols in the news
Judge in Atlanta Resigns From Courthouse-Shooting Case - The Washington Post:
ATLANTA — The judge presiding over the murder case of the man charged with killing four people in a 2005 shooting rampage that began inside a courthouse said Wednesday that he is stepping down from the case.
Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller cited recent media reports referring to a New Yorker magazine article quoting him as saying of the defendant, Brian Nichols: “Everyone in the world knows he did it.” The quote was made in the context that Nichols’s attorneys were employing an insanity defense.
Fuller, a retired DeKalb County judge who was asked to take the Nichols case after all Fulton County judges recused themselves, has been criticized for decisions in the case related to defense funding issues.
Cynthia Tucker at The Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Nichols escaped from the custody of a Fulton County deputy while he was on trial for allegedly raping an ex-girlfriend; authorities say he went on to kill four people — a judge, a court reporter, a deputy and a federal officer. After he was caught, he told police that he was a “soldier on a mission,” striking out against a criminal justice system biased against black Americans.
I can’t blame the judge for saying ‘everyone knows he did it’. He did it out in the open, there was no question that it was Nichols who killed the judge, court reporter, deputy and federal officer.
WJAC:
A reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was also injured during the incident, WSB reported. Authorities said the reporter, identified as Don O’Briant, was pistol-whipped and assaulted while the suspect was trying to get away. The reporter was taken to the hospital but his condition was not immediately available. The suspect apparently fled in the reporter’s car, described as a green Honda Accord with a tag of 658 4YN.
He was dumb enough to do all of this - and even beat up a reporter from the AJC.
There was a lot more to it than that; what sickened me was the fact that he was being held originally for the crime of raping and sodomizing his ‘fiance’ for hours. And as I recall he did something similar to his hostage, Ashley Smith, for seven hours. I thought this was a screaming example of political correctness because the officer who escorted him to court was a 100-pound grandma, and they had removed his shackles so it wouldn’t sway opinion in the courtroom to think he was ‘guilty’. He was guarded by a tiny little female - and he’s not only a criminal, he’s built like a linebacker and weighs 210 pounds.
But they assigned that little lady to “guard” him, anyway, which made no sense at all.
February 8th, 2008 at 5:20 am
Maybe Hilton Fuller made his gaffe with the New Yorker author that “accidentally” became public in order to justify recusing himself so as to avoid placing several of his fellow DeKalb County judges in a bad light. Members of the Georgia House leadership have been aware of Federal complaints describing Fuller’s supervision of an unlicensed practitioner employed by DeKalb County who appeared in Fuller’s courtroom.
Several of his brethren of the Stone Mountain Circuit had engaged in the same proscribed activity as Administrative (non-trial) judges. And all of the judges of the Stone Mountain Circuit had a duty under the Canons of Ethics of the Georgia Bar to “Assist in preventing unlicensed practice.” It appears that none of them, even Carol Hunstein, the Chair of the committee that recommended ratification (by Administrative order nunc pro tunc nine months) of that non-statutory organization, took affirmative action to prevent unlicensed practice for that period of over 10 years.
Fuller was the ULP’s supervisor for two years while serving as the Administrative Judge of the 4th Judicial Administrative District (the administrative arm of the Stone Mountain Circuit on which Fuller sat as a Superior Court Judge). When, after two Federal complaints, the county hired an attorney to prosecute, also supervised by Fuller, the Administrative Judge, DeKalb trial judges were reduced to merely violating Georgia’s Code of Judicial Conduct (preventing public statements by members of court personnel that might affect the outcome of a case) for another 5 years.
The County admitted in their Answer to a Federal Complaint that its employee/prosecutor was not a member of the Georgia Bar. US District Court Judge Julie Carnes prevented the each complaint from reaching the merits.
February 8th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Wow, that’s quite a story.
February 8th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Lives were lost. Political correctness and the legal system that “protects the rights of the perpetrators” is going to kill us all.