State wants records about Nichols' military service and 'anxiety'

<p>A Superior Court judge ordered the military Friday to turn over to the state records about accused courthouse gunman Brian Nichols' service in the Army Reserve and the definition of "situational anxiety."</p><p>The disclosure in a court filing could provide insight into Nichols' planned mental health defense.</p><p>Jury selection in his murder trial for the deaths of a judge, court reporter, sheriff's deputy and federal agent began Jan. 11. Individual questioning of potential jurors by lawyers in the case starts Feb. 26, and opening statements are not expected until April or May.</p><p>Nichols' attorneys have not elaborated on their planned mental health defense, which they disclosed in an earlier motion. But Nichols' father, Gene, said in an interview Friday that issue is a reasonable one to pursue.</p><p>"If a mental condition brought about these things, those things are necessary to be considered," Gene Nichols told The Associated Press.</p><p>He said his son served in the Army Reserve sometime around 1990 and was assigned to Fort Jackson in South Carolina, where Brian Nichols later played football for Newberry College. Gene Nichols declined to say if his son suffered any anxiety while in the Army Reserve or if he ever sought psychiatric help afterward.</p><p>"Those things I wouldn't want to comment on at this point," the father said. "It would be things the attorneys will discuss at the appropriate time."</p><p>He said his son received emergency medical technician training at Fort Jackson.</p><p>Defense attorney Gary Parker declined to comment on the defense strategy.</p><p>Situational anxiety is a term that refers to a person who suffers anxiety because of the environment they are in, from serving in the military to speaking in front of a crowd to even something as common as taking a test, said Dr. Allan Anderson, a forensic psychiatrist in Cambridge, Md.</p><p>"You'd be hard-pressed to say just because of anxiety, that played a role in someone engaging in a violent crime," Anderson said.</p><p>Anderson said it is common for people who serve in the military to suffer some type of anxiety.</p><p>"That includes the fact that most enrollees are younger kids, maybe for the first time going out on foreign soil or facing enemies," Anderson said. "Some will have normal anxiety. Others will get into a situation like that and just sort of melt down from the anxiety that they have in facing those stresses."</p><p>It's not clear if Nichols ever left Fort Jackson, near Columbia, S.C., during his training in the Army Reserve. A Fort Jackson spokesman, Jim Hinnant, said that records from that long ago would have been sent to a perennial center in St. Louis and he did not immediately have any information about Nichols' service.</p><p>"The name doesn't even ring a bell with me," Hinnant said.</p><p>According to court records, the defense has been seeking court assistance in getting funding to hire mental health experts as part of their case.</p><p>It's not clear if Nichols will argue that he was insane at the time of the killings or simply use the state of his mental health as a mitigating factor in determining his level of guilt and punishment if convicted.</p><p>Proving insanity is a tough prospect in Georgia. To show Nichols was insane, his lawyers would have to prove that he was not able to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the shootings. If a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity was accepted by the jury, a defendant would be sent to a state mental hospital for treatment rather than prison.</p><p>Nichols, 35, was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta for the continuation of his retrial on rape charges when he allegedly beat a deputy, stole her gun and went on a deadly shooting spree on March 11, 2005.</p><p>He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial, Rowland Barnes; a court reporter chronicling the proceeding, Julie Ann Brandau; a sheriff's deputy who chased him outside, Hoyt Teasley; and a federal agent he encountered at a home a few miles away that night, David Wilhelm. Nichols surrendered the next day after allegedly taking a woman hostage in her suburban Atlanta home.</p><p>Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Nichols is convicted of murder.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/1/108040