Thursday, November 27, 6:54am

Blogger Michelle asked me what reaction Nichols’ parents have to all this negative testimony about their family.  There’s no way to tell.  They haven’t been in the courtroom.  So either they are not allowed into the courtroom because they are planning to take the stand later, or they are choosing not be in the courtroom because they know what kind of testimony is being presented.

Wednesday, November 26, 12:55pm

Well, defense attorney Robert McGlasson has a bit of egg on his face.  Remember his complaint I blogged about this morning?  Well, after a break, the judge came out and said the court reporter checked the disc McGlasson claimed the prosecution may have tampered with.  The court reporter said about 130 files popped up on her computer.  McGlasson didn’t have much to say after that.  When he walked through the media room, McGlasson said he put the disc in his computer again, and the files STILL didn’t show up.  So who knows what the problem is.

  There will still be a hearing Monday morning, though.  There’s an unresolved issue about testimony from Rick Jacobs, the Georgia Department of Corrections guy, and when he heard the phone call of Brian Nichols saying if he could do something different, he’d come down on the third floor and shoot more people. (The district attorney’s office is on the 3rd floor.)  Anyway, prosecutor Clint Rucker told the judge earlier that his colleague Brett Pinion found out about the content of the call during a break, which is why they rushed to get it to the jury without checking to see whether the defense had a transcript of that part of the call.  Apparently Jacobs said he heard the phone call that morning BEFORE the mid-day break.  So Monday morning’s hearing will try to get to the bottom of that.

Wednesday, November 26, 11:29am

Up now is Terrence Tyson.  He was a college friend of Brian Nichols at Newberry College in Newberry, SC.  He told the jury about the hazing Brian endured when he was pledging Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.  He says Brian was one of two pledges in the small black fraternity.  He says Brian sometimes had bruises from being beaten with paddles and canes.  One day, Brian videotaped the beatings and took it to school officials.  He was “black-balled,” ostracized by fraternities on campus.  Before that, Brian had pledged a year and a half without ever being initiated into the fraternity.

Wednesday, November 26, 9:52am

Sherrie Coleman Rollins is on the stand now.  She’s Brian Nichols’ first cousin.  She says she, like most of Brian’s cousins, aunts and uncles, was an alcoholic and a drug user.  She says she remembers one of her cousins, an boy who was older than Brian, ‘humping’ Brian when he was 3 or 4 years old, in a bedroom upstairs at a family gathering.  She heard Brian crying.  That’s why she went into the room.  She told her cousin to get off of Brian or she would beat him up.  She took Brian downstairs with her.

Wednesday, November 26, 9:24am

The judge thanked juror #2 for bringing to his attention the fact that she overheard an officer and a maintenance man talking about the case.  Whatever she heard, the attorneys and the judge all agree, was not accurate.  So the judge told her to dismiss it.

Tuesday, November 26, 9:14am

Judge Jim Bodiford doesn’t seem too happy right now with defense attorney Robert McGlasson.  McGlasson’s reason for wanting a mistrial is that for some reason, there are only 29 phone calls on a disc that had 130-something phone calls on it originally.  The judge asked whether McGlasson is blaming the prosecution for doing something unscrupulous or criminal.  McGlasson acknowledged it could have something to do with the defense’s technology and an inability to see the files on the computer.  The judge told McGlasson he should’ve thought about that before he staked his reputation on it.  Still, the judge said he would hold an evidentiary hearing on the matter December 1st at 8am before the jury gets in.

Wednesday, November 26, 8:57am

A juror sent a note to the judge saying she had some inadvertant media exposure.  We’ll see if the judge questions her.

Also this morning, the defense is calling for a mistrial again.  This time, the defense is upset about an unexplained change in evidence.  I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.

Tuesday, November 25, 5:12pm

The strangest thing just happened.  We had a complete power outage in the Atlanta Municipal Courthouse.  All our equipment shut down.  The only lights were from a few laptop screens, which were operating on battery power.  In the courtroom across the hall, deputies rose to their feet and moved in on Nichols.  They took the jury out.  But when the lights came back on, nothing was amiss.  Still, a tense moment at the trial.

Tuesday, November 25, 4:51pm

On the stand now is one of Brian Nichols’ first cousins.  His name is Abdul-Rahmaan Waajid.  (He converted to Islam as a teenager.)  The judge asked us not to show his face because of the subject matter.  He’s talking about how just about everyone in the family abused drugs and alcohol while Nichols was growing up.  Waajid says he and other family members, including his parents, did marijuana, heroine, cocaine and just about everything else you could think of.  He says there was no supervision by adults.  The whole atmosphere was a terrible influence for kids.  Did that atmosphere contribute to Nichols’ actions on March 11, 2005?  That’s what the jury will have to decide as they consider whether to sentence Nichols to life in prison or death.

Tuesday, November 25, 3:15pm

Dr. Dudley wins the prize for the most boring!  He’s being paid $300/hr. and the only new thing we’ve heard is Nichols’ reasoning for killing Julie Brandau.  (See earlier post.)  And that tidbit certainly didn’t help Nichols, which is what Dudley is being paid to try to do.  The jury is having a hard time staying awake, and so are we in the media room.