Saturday - March 12, 2005

Blame The Supreme Court

If you want an explanation for the shootings at the courthouse in Atlanta yesterday, look no further than the US Supreme Court. Based on SCOTUS decisions (cited below) a defendent on trial may not be bound, shackled, gagged or even appear in prison clothes as it might prejudice the jury into assuming guilt by seeing them in this condition. Prisoners on trial must be allowed to change into civilian clothes and must not be bound when on trial. This is what caused the deadly shootings in Atlanta yesterday.

The prisoner, Brian Nichols, had just changed his clothes in the changing room and was being led out to the courtroom (with no handcuffs or leg chains) when he overpowered the lone female deputy, took her gun and shot her before storming into the courtroom and shooting the judge and court reporter. It seems to me the courts are determined to be the cause of their own demise. Therefore, I cannot fault the deputy or any of the law enforcement officers in the courthouse yesterday. The real fault lies with a judicial system that pampers the criminals and denies the general public any protection against these felons.

Illinois v. Allen , 397 U.S. 337 (1970) - the Supreme Court decided that defendents on trial may not be shackled or gagged as this imparts a feeling of guilt to jurors.

Trying a defendant for a crime while he sits bound and gagged before the judge and jury would to an extent comply with that part of the Sixth Amendment’s purposes that accords the defendant an opportunity to confront the witnesses at the trial. But even to contemplate such a technique, much less see it, arouses a feeling that no person should be tried while shackled and gagged except as a last resort. Not only is it possible that the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury’s feelings about the defendant, but the use of this technique is itself something of an affront to the very dignity and decorum of judicial proceedings that the judge is seeking to uphold.

Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501 (1976) - the Supreme Court decided that prisoners on trial must not be forced to appear before the court in prison clothes and must be provided civilian clothes as it might prejudice the jury against the defendent.

Identifiable prison garb robs an accused of the respect and dignity accorded other participants in a trial and constitutionally due the accused as an element of the presumption of innocence, and surely tends to brand him in the eyes of the jurors with an unmistakable mark of guilt. Jurors may speculate that the accused’s pretrial incarceration, although often the result of his inability to raise bail, is explained by the fact he poses a danger to the community or has a prior criminal record; a significant danger is thus created of corruption of the factfinding process through mere suspicion. The prejudice may only be subtle and jurors may not even be conscious of its deadly impact, but in a system in which every person is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the Due Process Clause forbids toleration of the risk. Jurors required by the presumption of innocence to accept the accused as a peer, an individual like themselves who is innocent until proved guilty, may well see in an accused garbed in prison attire an obviously guilty person to be recommitted by them to the place where his clothes clearly show he belongs. It is difficult to conceive of any other situation more fraught with risk to the presumption of innocence and the standard of reasonable doubt.

And even now, in Drope v. Missouri, the Supreme Court is debating whether a prisoner may be shackled or bound during the penalty phase of the trial.

Now you know ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/12/2005 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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