Deputies Still Best Defense Against Violence in Court

You can seal off the courthouse. Use X-rays to search for hidden weapons. Zap defendants with 50,000 volts of electricity. Even so, subduing unruly defendants who get out of control inside courtrooms may come down to this: a gang tackle by burly sheriff’s deputies or, even worse, a shooting.

Despite advances in technology and greater awareness of the potential dangers of unruly defendants, security inside courtrooms remains a difficult balance between the safety of juries and court officers and the legal rights granted to defendants for a fair trial, experts say.

Securing courtrooms from violent outbursts has been a problem throughout the 1990s. But it is one that still offers no easy solution, particularly in the area of the courtroom known as “the well,” the neutral zone separating the judge, the jury, and the prosecution and defense teams.

In criminal courts, the courtroom is the only place a prisoner in custody can be free of shackles or restraints. And some prisoners can’t resist the temptation to break for freedom, slug their attorneys or go after sheriff’s deputies who provide courtroom security.

As a result, both civil and criminal courts, once considered bastions of peace and civility where feuding parties could work out their differences calmly, all too often have become an extension of the war going on in America’s streets or bedrooms, experts say.

Because no agency collects data on a statewide or national basis, it is not known how many incidents occur inside county courtrooms in California. The lack of concrete numbers has created debate within legal circles about just how serious the problem of courtroom violence is.

But a dramatic incident earlier this month brought the issue into focus. During the reading of guilty verdicts in the highly publicized murder case of 17-year-old Corie Williams, fights broke out among the three defendants and their families. All were subdued by a phalanx of deputies.

It is not unusual to hear of similar courthouse or courtroom melees, shootings or stabbings somewhere in the country on any given day, law enforcement experts say.

In Los Angeles County, metal detectors and X-ray machines are used to screen people entering most county courthouses.

Inside the courtroom, sheriff’s deputies have used stun belts, which can zap wearers with 50,000 volts of low-amperage electricity, to maintain control. The officers have also experimented with snap-lock leg braces, which can keep a prisoner from running. In Van Nuys, a program is underway to test chairs that lock in a defendant with a special belt harness that cannot be seen by a jury.

But there are problems with each.

The use of stun belts in Los Angeles County courtrooms was halted by a lawsuit challenging their use. The usefulness of leg braces and special chairs is offset by the fact that they can’t stop a defendant from slugging his attorney. And the restraints, considered prejudicial if seen by a jury, could lead to a mistrial if a defendant struggles and the jury sees that he is being shackled.

That places most of the pressure on sheriff’s deputies who serve as courtroom bailiffs.

“You can never let your guard down,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Doug McLellan, who spent many years in court security in Torrance and works for the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.

Deputies say they have to be part psychologist. When trials become emotional pressure cookers, deputies say establishing some kind of nonconfrontational communication with inmates, as well as the families of both the suspect and the crime victim, can help head off trouble. Deputies even use a phrase borrowed from psychologists to describe violent behavior by prisoners, calling it “acting out.”

In Pasadena this year, two people during one three-week period were arrested after they sneaked handguns through metal detectors. A woman hid a gun in her purse; a man stowed one away in his briefcase. Both evaded metal detectors.

In July, a man was arrested while on his way to a child custody hearing. Deputies discovered he was carrying two loaded revolvers. He also got past the detectors.

“Imagine if you catch loaded guns with weapons screening what would be getting into court without it,” said Deputy Paul Bustrum, a court security program coordinator for the Sheriff’s Department.

An additional problem is created by weapons smuggled into courtrooms by prisoners.

In July, a sheriff’s deputy was stabbed in the chest during an attack in a Compton courtroom by a prisoner holding a homemade wooden knife. The prisoner was fatally shot by a bailiff when he went for the throat of a second deputy.

Some defense attorneys, even some who have been punched or shot at during court hearings, believe the extent of the problem is exaggerated.

But deputies charged with keeping order believe such things as the three-strikes law have made persons facing longer sentences more desperate.

“There is certainly a growing concern about [courtroom violence],” said Presiding Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert W. Parkin, who hopes all the county’s courthouses will soon have security screening.

Up the coast, Ron Albers, head trial attorney in the San Francisco public defender’s office, nearly died in a courtroom shooting.

Albers was representing a homicide suspect when the victim’s distraught father walked into court with a .38-caliber handgun and opened fire on the man accused of murdering his daughter.

The shooter wounded the defendant and “missed me by a couple of inches,” Albers said. Bullets were flying everywhere, Albers recalled, barely missing the court clerk, lodging in the judge’s bench.

Afterward, Albers, now on the board of governors of the California State Bar Assn., said he surveyed law enforcement friends.

The badly shaken lawyer wanted to know: Was there something the judicial system could do to prevent such things from taking place?

What he found out, he said, was that coming up with a consensus was “really difficult.”

That was eight years ago.

Today, little has changed, Albers said.

Earlier this year, defense attorney Steve Hauser was punched in Compton Court by a client on trial for a double homicide. Because of the severity of the case and the client’s history, Hauser’s client was wearing a stun belt. But that didn’t stop him from slugging Hauser.

“The belt doesn’t prevent a sucker punch. It doesn’t activate fast enough,” said Hauser, a member of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

But Hauser said it was the only time in 25 years of practice that he had been attacked by a client.

“I still don’t see it as a huge problem,” Hauser said.

Defense attorneys don’t like the idea of using anything that would restrict the movement of their clients.

“It is uncontroverted that when a jury sees someone restrained, through leg shackles or handcuffs or any other type of device, there is a clear leap that the person must be guilty,” said Liz Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union branch in Los Angeles.

“You have to come up with things that are not seen,” said Deputy Steven Wheatcroft, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s security operations unit.

The use of stun belts in Los Angeles County courtrooms has been suspended because of a legal challenge presented by attorneys questioning what they deem inappropriate use of the device in a Long Beach courtroom. In a case that drew worldwide attention, Long Beach Municipal Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani ordered the belt activated against defendant Ronnie Hawkins during a July sentencing hearing after Hawkins repeatedly interrupted her.

Until their use was halted, the belts, worn under clothing, were used on prisoners who were deemed security risks, faced three-strikes life sentences or had histories of violent behavior in courtrooms, deputies said.

Among the problems cited by critics are its potential for indiscriminate use, the chance of accidental discharges, and the belt’s implicit intimidation factor. Defense attorneys say they want their clients to focus on the trial, free of the distraction that someone might accidentally send 50,000 volts through their body.

Sgt. Robert McLin, in charge of security at the Compton Courthouse, said stun belts can be effectively monitored. McLin said he had to activate the belt against only two of the 15 defendants he used the belt on.

“The belts were activated twice, once by me on a defendant who attacked his attorney [the Hauser case] and another time against a defendant who rushed the jury box,” McLin said.

Deciding he wanted to find out for himself what stun belts were all about, McLin put one on and had the juice turned on.

“It was extremely painful. I went up on my tiptoes, but didn’t fall down,” said McLin. “It was the longest eight seconds of my life.”

McLin said that until there is a better solution, he must rely on manpower.

That was dramatized during a sentencing hearing for the three young men convicted of killing Corie Williams during a gang-related shooting on an MTA bus. McLin brought 11 deputies to court.

Weeks earlier, when the jury returned the guilty verdicts, a violent melee erupted, filling the courtroom with screams, curses, threats and fighting. Family members wrestled with deputies just feet from the shocked jurors. One of the defendants broke away from the defense table and lunged for the prosecutor. Deputies swarmed over him before he could do any harm.

When the suspects were back before Compton Superior Court Judge Victoria M. Chavez to set a date for sentencing, McLin was taking no chances.

Six deputies, armed with handguns, were stationed near the entrance to the court. Five other deputies, including McLin, were inside the railing. They left their guns locked up outside the courtroom, leaving their holsters empty, a common security measure taken by deputies fearful of losing their gun in a fight with prisoners. As an added precaution, the defendants were handcuffed to a chain wrapped around their waist. The hearing was held without incident.

During the earlier disturbance, McLin had been able to summon 22 deputies to restore order. Many of the deputies had to be pulled from other courtrooms.

To McLin, the donnybrook was just part of the job. He called it a relatively minor incident, one that attracted attention because it unfolded in front of the news media drawn to the courtroom by the highly publicized Corie Williams case.

“It is not unusual to see that kind of behavior,” he said.