17/03/05

Brian Nichols: Dead Man Walking 

Carl Worden

Sierra Times

The Big Story since Friday, 3/11/05, has been the case of Brian Nichols, who is alleged to have overpowered a sheriff’s deputy, taken her gun and killed three people, including the court reporter and the Judge presiding over Nichols’ trial on rape charges.

Nichols is also suspected of murdering a federal customs agent and taking his ID, gun and vehicle while eluding the dragnet that had been laid out for him around Atlanta, Georgia.

The most commonly seen photograph of Nichols appears to be his mug shot, and he’s not smiling. In fact he looks somewhat brooding and menacing. At this writing, authorities report Nichols has just been arrested and is in police custody.

Some of the aspects of this case intrigue me a great deal.

First, Nichols has no violent criminal record. I seem to recall he was convicted of a misdemeanor in another state for something like disturbing the peace when he was in college. Big deal. But the people who know Nichols well regard him as an easy-going kind of guy, polite and soft-spoken. One person said he thought Nichols “had a temper”, but who doesn’t from time-to-time? A “temper” that lacks the trappings of convictions for violence reveals the normal restraint most law-abiding folks operate by, so what got Nichols so riled in this case that he went on a killing spree?

From what I understand, Nichols was on trial for raping a former girlfriend. She said it was rape; he said it was consensual -- her word against his. No witnesses. The case was weak enough that in Nichol’s first trial, the jury locked in favor of acquittal, 8 to 4. Hmm….

Next, the prosecution had the opportunity to interview the jurors from the first trial, which allowed them to learn from their mistakes, and they immediately put Nichols on trial again. This time it looked like Nichols would be convicted.

Apparently, it was that realization that sent Nichols into a killing frenzy – at least, that’s what I think.

I don’t know what kind of time Nichols faced if he was convicted on the rape charge, but his life is now over. If there is a death penalty in Georgia, he’s going to get it, because Nancy Grace of Court TV and now a regular on CNN, will demand it. The murdered judge happened to be a friend and mentor of Grace, so if you thought Scott Peterson was railroaded by Grace & Company, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

I’m going on pure gut here, so bear with me, because I’m pretty good at this and I believe the events leading up to this case will vindicate what I’m about to write.

To get an “easy-going” guy with no violent criminal background to flip and start killing people like flies on a wall, my gut tells me this guy was falsely accused of rape by the former girlfriend to begin with. The kind of charge the “victim” made against Nichols is oh-so typically made by a jilted ex-lover, and early reports I read indicated another woman – another Nichols-impregnated woman -- was involved. Ooh, not good!

I’ve written it before, and it bears repeating: When a case involves one party accusing another of rape, and where no witnesses or hard, corroborating evidence exists, prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to present such a case to a grand jury. Unfortunately, they do it all the time.

The prosecution contends Nichols bound the victim with duct tape and ravaged her. I think I saw mention of bruising too, all of which can be affected afterward by a “victim” with premeditation, or by a “victim” who is into kinky sex to begin with. It still comes down to “he said – she said”, and I don’t believe anybody should ever be put on trial unless the prosecution has a lot more than that to show the jury. Again, unfortunately they do it all the time nowadays because jurors will convict someone of a crime on nothing more than circumstantial evidence. Just look at what they did to Scott Peterson, and they topped it all off by recommending Peterson be put to death!

So let’s get inside Nichol’s head for a moment. If he was falsely accused of rape, and if he is as intelligent as most of his friends insist he is, he had to know a conviction for rape would virtually destroy his life. He would have to register as a sex offender after leaving prison, and his prospects for future gainful employment would be hampered to say the least.

So Nichols kept his cool through the first trial, which had to have given him hope that the justice system would serve him, and the deadlocked jury probably gave him at least a moment of renewed faith in what we all know is a very unjust system indeed. The next moment, his world hits the wall when the prosecutor insists on another immediate trial and gets another chance to send him to prison for something he didn’t do. How would that affect you if you knew you were innocent? And when it became obvious to Nichols he was going to be convicted on the second go-around, I think that’s when he snapped.

I wouldn’t be writing anything of the kind if Nichols had a violent criminal history. I wouldn’t be writing this if Nichols had any criminal history. There’s something really wrong with this picture, and now that Nichols is in custody, I think the truth is going to be revealed almost exactly right along the lines I’ve just drawn.

Of course, it won’t matter: Nichols is a dead man walking anyway, no matter what facts are about to emerge. But keep this in mind: If Nichols was falsely accused of the rape to begin with, the “rape victim” is just about as guilty of those deaths as the guy who pulled the trigger.

Thou shalt not bear false witness…