Brian Nichols Trial

Brian Nichols; Public Defenders; Death Penalty; Funding death penalty cases

Brian Nichols killed 4 people when he escaped from the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, GA. The trial is an everyday headline in Georgia and occasionally in the national papers as well. The case has also caught the attention of every public defenders office across the nation.
The case has cost the public defenders office approximately 1.8 million dollars before it ever went to trial.
On March 11, 2005, Brian Nichols was on trial for rape when he allegedly overpowered a deputy, took her gun, and went into the Fulton County courtroom where his trial was being held. Nichols allegedly shot both the judge and a court reporter. Nichols is also charged with killing a sheriff's deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent a few miles from the courthouse. Nichols's escape set into motion one of the largest manhunts in Georgia history; it ended after he allegedly took Ashley Smith hostage and she convinced him to turn himself in.

The factual accounts seem to be clear that Nichols killed several people and there are lots of witnesses. The day before the trial jail officials found homemade knives in each of his shoes, which indicates that the spree was premeditated. So why then is it costing so much to defend this man?
Nichols defense is that he is not guilty due to insanity. The money is going to pay for experts who will testify that he is indeed crazy. These will be negated by other experts on the DA’s side who will say that he is not crazy. Then the jury decides who had the best and most convincing experts.
In the end, Brian Nichols either gets the death penalty, is found not guilty (not likely), or is deemed so crazy that he is not fit to stand trial for his crimes and spends the rest of his life in some sort of jail / mental ward. And will cost Georgia taxpayers over 2 million dollars just to put on the trial.

There is no doubt that there is something wrong with someone who kills several people.
Arguments against war, self defense aside, to willingly take a human life is so against our peaceful culture that any one who does it has to be some what different than the rest of us. The very idea that it is ok to kill someone not trying to harm you is so far removed from what we view as correct, that doing so means that the killer has something inherently wrong with them. The point being that ANYONE who willingly murders another is crazy enough that we don’t want them around. Whether this is temporary or not, the general public does not want murderers running around willy nilly taking lives on a whim. There is one solution. Remove this person from the general public so that he can not do harm.
There are two ways to do that. You can imprison him somewhere so that he does not have contact with the public and can’t commit murder. Or you take away what he has taken from others. Namely, his life. If he is dead, he cant go around killing folks. This also solves the nasty retribution killing problem by putting the state in charge of the death penalty so that it is not performed by lynch mobs.
We could spend a long debating that very subject, and it has and continues to be debated.

On one extreme you have the “eye for an eye” folks who support the death penalty any time someone take a life. On the other extreme you have the “No death penalty at all” folks. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. The voters of the state of Georgia have decided that they like the idea of the death penalty. So there is no argument to be made here. The death penalty was on the table as a valid option. The state of Georgia has decided they want to pursue the that option. The heinousness, callousness, premeditated and very public way in which the murders were done demand that elected official call for the most extreme punishment that is allowed by law.

So why all the hubbub?
Because the defense of this obviously guilty man will cost the taxpayers well over 2 million dollars.
Why does that matter? Isn’t everyone entitled to defend themselves and aren’t we supposed to give him the best possible defense and consider him innocent until we prove he is found guilty by a jury?
Yes?
But the defense of Brian Nichols has sapped the funds of the already strapped Georgia Public Defenders office to the point that they can not now carry on the adequate representation of all of their other clients (some of those are capital murder cases as well).

There are some arguments and questions here:
1. The death penalty is bad and this is just another reason why we shouldn’t have it.
2. The death penalty is a vital part of our justice system but when a life is at stake there should be no question about money. The state should just shoulder the burden of the cost of the defense and move on.
3. Even if the state should have to shoulder the burden of the cost of the defense, is everyone entitled to an “OJ style” multi-million dollar defense?
4. Should the state legislature set a limit on how much a death penalty defense case can use?
5. How much would it be?
6. Would that be constitutional?
7. Why isn’t anyone considering how much it costs the state to prosecute the case?
8. Doesn’t the state have an equally high cost for professional expert witnesses?
9. If anyone who murders someone else is crazy for doing it, how crazy do you have to be in order to avoid prosecution?

I myself have always subscribed to the notion of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It seems just, cruel but just. No one wants to be punished. The human mind rationalizes in order to survive. We can’t see ourselves as bad people because that would undermine our self worth to a point where we could not function. I am sure that crazy or sane that Brian Nichols has rationalized that what he did at the time was perfectly ok, or at least that even if it was not ok that he should not be punished for it.

The people of Georgia have indicated that they want blood for blood, and I’m ok with that.