As many watch news coverage of high-profile criminal trials, all too often the police, prosecutors and judges are portrayed as the good guys, and those accused of criminal action take the role of the evil villain. After all, the defendant is the one who must “beat” the system for the prize of freedom.
Many of those who are arrested and jailed are guilty of the crimes they are accused of. However, an equal number are innocent. A large majority of society turns a deaf ear towards this and doesn’t want to think it could happen- when in fact it could one day happen to them.
Since America’s sweetheart Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his wife and unborn child, he has been shipped off to San Quentin, and his role has been recast as Brian Nichols.
Nichols was the Fulton County prisoner in Atlanta who broke free from his guard and killed four innocent people on his way to twenty-three hours of freedom. While many have focused on the issue of how he did this, the more important issue is why- as all reports show, he was a levelheaded guy until he was accused of a crime.
What has been publicized in the media are the gory details of how Nichols escaped that day. What was not is that Nichols had been sitting in jail for six months while he was denied bail, and that the judge declared a mistrial in the first court proceeding. Also absent was any mention that when this happens, the odds drastically improve for the prosecution to win.
While killing is something I do not agree with or condone, I can understand why Nichols was driven to that point. It is easy for any of us to sit here free and outside of jail and condemn Nichols’ behavior, but if you put yourself in his shoes, you may just see it a little differently. The sad fact is that it could have been any of us sitting in that jail cell accused and waiting.
Police are allowed too much discretion in their investigations as all too often they are in direct conspiracy with the prosecution and judges to get people jailed. They use many tricks that run roughshod over the “innocent until proven guilty” system – one of those being the denial of bail for defendants.
When this happens, unless you are in the small minority of criminal defendants who are rich and have a powerful attorney, you are stuck with a public defender that is not likely to secure your release. You’re stuck waiting for your day in court in a dirty, dingy jail cell overcrowded with convicted criminals.
Many things can be done to prevent this from happening. The first is that the system should always move quickly, not just when it is convenient for the prosecution. If a judge feels someone is a threat and should be denied bail, then the police and prosecution should initiate trial proceedings within seven days.
Those who are jailed and awaiting trial should be housed separately from those convicted of crimes. If someone isn’t a criminal when they go in, and they’ve had six months to talk about it with others who do it for a living, they will be by the time they get out.
Nichols got his day in court by beating the system to get a mistrial. The judge and prosecution couldn’t live with that thought, though, so they moved for his immediate retrial. That is when Brian Nichols lost all hope, so his internal meter of right and wrong went haywire.
He did not have to become a killer. The criminal justice system failed, and when it did, the smokescreen was set to cover up the real failure – not that of the sheriff’s department to safely contain their inmates, but that of the criminal justice system to treat those accused of crimes as innocent people.
Mike Dickinson may be reached at mdickinson2112@aol.com