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Murder in the Court

Aired March 11, 2005 - 14:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, the search is on for a suspect after a judge, a court reporter and a deputy are shot dead at an Atlanta courthouse.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're following developments in this breaking story.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Murder in the court. Authorities say an apparently armed, highly- dangerous suspect is on the loose. It's all happening here in the city blocks surrounding the Fulton County courthouse in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. As you've seen in our wall-to-wall coverage, an esteemed superior court judge is dead, a court reporter is dead, a sheriff's deputy is dead, and another deputy wounded.

Our Gary Tuchman is at the center of all the chaos and he's going to bring us up to date -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we're just a few blocks away from you at CNN Center, where life here in downtown Atlanta is getting back to normal. But it will never get back to normal for the family members of these three victims who were shot and killed inside this courthouse.

The gunman still being looked for. And a search is being taken here in Georgia and in the neighboring states of Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina. It happened five hours ago inside that building behind me. That is the Fulton County Courthouse, eighth floor, rape trial in its fifth day, Brian Nichols accused of kidnapping and rape.

As the trial was about to start the day, Nichols lunged at a deputy who was inside the court room and grabbed her gun and then shot here in the head. That deputy is in the hospital in critical condition.

Nichols later fired, though, at a court reporter and the judge inside the courtroom, Judge Rowland Barnes. He killed them both.

He then walked down the stairway onto the street that you see, Martin Luther King Boulevard, where another deputy encountered him. Nichols then fired at that deputy. That deputy was killed.

Nichols then tried to carjack at least two vehicles, went inside this garage right across the street from the courthouse. This is called the underground parking garage where people who are driving to work in downtown Atlanta, many tourists park here. He pistol-whipped someone who got out of a car, demanded that that person get into the trunk.

That person, who happens to be a reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" newspaper, refused to go in the truck. Nichols then took the car, went away, and since then authorities have been looking for him.

They're very concerned, obviously, because this man has nothing to lose now after killing three people, wounding another. But they're not exactly sure what vehicle he's in.

The vehicle he ultimately took was a Honda Accord, a green Honda accord. However authorities aren't truly convinced that he's still in that vehicle. They've been looking all over the Atlanta metropolitan area, including here in the downtown area. But right now the search doesn't seem to be centered here.

Traffic is once again moving. It seems to be centered in the northern part of Fulton County. This is the central part of the county.

He apparently -- this man used to live in the northern part of that county, and that's where they've been looking. But they're looking all over the southeastern United States now because it's been more than five hours since he left. Once again, a man who they feel has nothing to lose is still at large.

Back to you, Miles and Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Gary, just a quick question. Have you heard from any of your sources out there as you work this story if anybody fired back at the gunman? Do you know that when he took the gun from the deputy, if it happened in the courtroom, outside of the courtroom, and if anybody responded to the scene and fired back?

TUCHMAN: Here is what we know. It either happened in the courtroom or in a room next to the courtroom, but definitely on the eighth floor.

We don't know if anyone fired back upstairs. We do know, according to a witness down here, that the deputy was not able to fire back, that he ran towards this person and this person then fired the gun at him.

One thing I do want to point out. A lot of our viewers are wondering, you know, how does a man lunge at a gun who is being tried for rape? Because what happens in a trial, there is a jury there, in order for the jury not to presume this man is guilty, he doesn't have to be handcuffed, doesn't have to be manacled, is allowed to wear common clothes, and, therefore, something like this can happen.

And I can tell you, about five years ago, I was covering a court case in New York City where there were terrorist suspects. They were having a hearing and there were five or six of these terror suspects.

They were sitting in the jury box because it was a preliminary hearing. And while we were sitting there, one of these terror suspects jumped out of the jury box and started running towards the deputy.

There were like four or five deputies in the room, and they tackled this guy on the ground in front of the judge. We were very scared for several seconds. We didn't know what was going to happen.

We didn't know if he had helpers inside the courtroom, we didn't know what was going to happen. And we didn't know what he was going to do.

But this kind of thing has happened before. And under the system we have in this country, it could happen again.

PHILLIPS: So, Gary, do we know if indeed Brian Nichols was cuffed? And if he was cuffed, was he cuffed from the front or was he cuffed from the back?

TUCHMAN: No, Brian Nichols was not cuffed because he was in there for his...

PHILLIPS: Definitely not cuffed?

TUCHMAN: Definitely not cuffed. He was in there for his trial and the jury was there, and you're not cuffed. You are cuffed very often when you have a hearing, when it's just before the judge, when it's not up to a jury to decide if someone is guilty or not guilty.

We see that often, that suspects are manacled, their feed, they're handcuffed. But when it comes to your trial, when it comes to those 12 members of the jury who are going to be watching you, you sit there because you are innocent until you're proven guilty and, therefore, you can't be wearing handcuffs.

PHILLIPS: Gary, what about when he was in court previously, before this court date? Did he ever try to cause any trouble or bring anything into the courtroom or act up or try to, you know, bully anybody around?

TUCHMAN: Well, you bring up an important part of the story, Kyra, that he was in court for the same trial. Previously the trial ended in a mistrial.

It was then up to the state of Georgia whether they wanted to try him again. They made a decision to try him again. So the second trial in this rape and kidnapping charge began last Monday.

This was going to be the fifth day of the trial. As far as whether he's caused problems before, we don't know. We do know that some people are saying that he was trying to intimidate the jury by staring at them during this second trial. That's one of the things we're hearing right now.

PHILLIPS: All right. Do me a favor, Gary. We're going to move on to our next guest because I'm told evidently, allegedly the last time he was in the courthouse he tried to bring a knife in his boot. So we're going to get more details on that with our next guest with Miles.

Gary Tuchman outside of the courtroom there. Thank you so much. We'll continue to check in with you, of course.

O'BRIEN: Dennis Scheib is an attorney who knows the courthouse well. As a matter of fact, has a murder case right now before the late Judge Barnes now.

I want to talk to you about the judge personally in a moment. But first, let's talk about this point that you just brought up, that on a previous occurrence -- in his previous trial or on a previous day in this current trial, I'm not sure which, he tried to get a knife inside the courthouse?

DENNIS SCHEIB, ATTORNEY: I was told by a deputy I spoke to outside the court. They were talking about him, and last week during his trial, somehow, some way, he had what happened to be something like a knife in his boot they took off of him.

O'BRIEN: All right. So once that happens, presumably major alarm bells go off, warning flags. And would a prisoner be treated differently subsequent to that?

SCHEIB: Well, he could be. I mean, I've had murder trials where the people are supposed -- they're not supposed to be cuffed generally in front of the jury. You don't want them to know they're in custody, so forth.

But I've had them where they've worn a certain type of braces where they cannot move, or even shock advises where, if they were to get up and do anything, they could go ahead and shock them. They may not -- I've even known of some -- it's up to a judge. A judge can go ahead and, if this person needs to be cuffed, shackled, they can be cuffed for security of the courtroom.

O'BRIEN: And, of course, that opens up the possibility of appeal later because you could make a case as a defense attorney that that tainted the view of that suspect and the view of the jury. And that might have been what was on the mind of the judge in this case.

SCHEIB: Yes, because you have, in this case, a very fair, good judge. I mean, a great judge.

But the courts have said all the way up to the Supreme Court it's up to the judge. If the judge wants to go ahead and deal with it in a certain way, as long as it's security, it's within his discretion to do so.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's back up and talk about the big picture here. You know that courthouse as well as any attorney. What is your general sense about how secure it is?

SCHEIB: Security is terrible over there. I mean, I've been screaming for years -- and I don't -- and this is a tragic situation to say, I told you so. I've spoken to judges, defense lawyers. Danny, who was running for sheriff, who did not make it as sheriff, was going to go ahead and retain my services to go ahead and work with the deputies as far as security.

But I've been all over this state, other states. I was a police officer 13 years, deputy sheriff five years. I've been in martial arts for 40 some years. I've trained with the Japanese police.

And security over there, the amount of deputies they had, the way they did security, the way they lend themselves to be attacked like they did today, I mean, it was bound to happen. And I've told many judges, and just like -- it just went deaf ear.

O'BRIEN: So the obvious holes were the number of deputies or some of the tactics they use, or both?

SCHEIB: Both. Some of the tactics. And this one deputy who is involved in this, I pulled her about two years ago. I pulled her out of a jail cell when she was going in there to wake somebody up that they needed, and she walked in the jail cell with eight or nine other defendants in there with a gun on.

And I grabbed her and pulled her out and said, "What are you doing?" And explained to her, "You don't go in there that way."

I mean, they do not have enough deputies to deal with the scenario. And their tactics is just terrible. They approach to many defendants with guns.

DeKalb County is a prime example of a very professional-run scenario. They know how to deal with them. They do not approach defendants with guns. Another deputy will take it, and they have great security over there.

O'BRIEN: Well, let's bring up that point. We're speaking, of course, about DeKalb County, which is the neighboring county here to Fulton County in Atlanta, with a big chunk of Atlanta in DeKalb County.

This overall question has always bothered me covering trials over the years as a reporter. You're in a sanitized area, you've gone through a magnetometer. Why do you even introduce guns at all? Should it be treated like a prison would be, which is the case of the guards not having weapons on them?

SCHEIB: Well, I've always wondered about that. But you could have a scenario where somebody could sneak something in -- or you could have -- they could -- like 9/11. I mean, I think everything was plastic there. I mean, they could do that, and they could take something in there.

There's a weapon -- during a trial, they could have -- they could pick up a weapon that wouldn't have bullets in it, but they could use a weapon. They could pick up a chair. And deputies may need to use deadly force. But I don't think they're trained well enough to deal with people the way they need to deal with them.

O'BRIEN: What else do they need to be doing?

SCHEIB: They need to look at the whole security system the way they have it here. It's just terrible. In Fulton County, it's terrible. And three people have died today to show it.

If anything comes out of this, I hope it's better security in Fulton County, and maybe in different areas of Georgia.

O'BRIEN: A personal note for a moment. You knew the judge well. You actually employed his daughter, who is on her way to law school, spoke with her this morning.

SCHEIB: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Just give us a sense of the personal loss here.

SCHEIB: Well, his daughter happened to call me at 7:45 this morning, just -- I haven't spoken to her in a while. She actually worked for me for a while, and she was wanting a phone number.

And we spoke, and I said, "What are you doing now?" And she said, "I'm getting ready to go to law school." And I said, "Well, you want to be like your dad?"

And Kiley (ph) is just real sweet. And Rowland Barnes and Kiley (ph) were very, very close.

And I've known him almost 20 years. And we'd go back in the chambers and discuss personal things, and I would discuss professional things. And two weeks, the one deputy that was shot today bought a big box of candy. I think it was for her daughter's school or something, and I went back in the chambers, and the judge usually was eating with his staff. And I gave him the whole box of candy because I'm getting too fat, I don't need it anyway.

So -- and he just took it. He's one of these people you can approach. He was on the bench very, very professional. But he is just-- he's going to be sorely missed.

I mean, he was -- he could teach judges a thing about how to be, you know, a tough judge, but decent. He did not have what some lawyers refer to as "robitis," which is went to his head. I mean, he was just an approachable, very, very decent, very smart man.

O'BRIEN: Dennis Scheib, attorney at law here in Atlanta, Georgia, spends a lot of time in Fulton County Courthouse and obviously knows the scene as well as the people there well. Thanks for your time -- Kyra.

SCHEIB: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, we are awaiting news conference at Atlanta City Hall. We're going to bring that to you live as soon as it happens. Meanwhile, we're also going to talk with a judge who teaches a course on courthouse safety. Talk about just how is it possible that a man is able to get a gun in there and have the opportunity to shoot innocent individuals. We'll have more of that just ahead on LIVE FROM.

O'BRIEN: Also ahead, we'll talk with some other people who are giving us the latest on the search for the suspect, 33-year-old Brian Nichols, who is perhaps as far away as other states at this point, more than four hours after the shooting which occurred. And we'll go in-depth on so-called smart gun technology as well, how it works, how it might prevent someday shootings like this from happening.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: And if you're just tuning in, once again, you're watching rolling coverage right now. We'll bring you up to date.

A gunman still on the loose, three people dead, including a superior court judge, a court reporter, and a deputy. We are expecting a live news conference from here in Atlanta, Georgia, at the LA -- or at the Atlanta City Hall, rather.

Once again, this is the man police are looking for, Brian Nichols. He could be in the area. He could have headed outside the area.

He's believed to be driving a green Honda Accord with this license plate: 6584YN. Now, keep in mind this is a man that has already swapped cars at least three other times.

He is known to be armed and dangerous. He is on the loose. If you have any information with regard to this car, this license plate, or this man, Brian Nichols, we ask that you contact authorities, Fulton County Police here in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meanwhile, the tense emotional nature of a legal battle, well, it can set up a volatile situation, just like what we saw today at the Atlanta courthouse. And security is a big concern for courthouses across the country because of what we saw today.

Judge Lee Sinclair of Stark County, Ohio, court teaches others what to do in case of an emergency. And Judge Sinclair is on the phone with us right now from Canton.

Judge, can you hear me OK?

JUDGE LEE SINCLAIR, STARK COUNTY, OHIO: I can. Thank you for having me join you.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's a pleasure to have you.

First of all, tell us what you teach with regard to security in the courthouse. And then I want to just get your opinion on what we know so far about what happened today. SINCLAIR: We teach pretty much an overview to judges from throughout the United States. I do also quite of bit of it in Ohio and pretty much all over the nation, about making the judge aware of their surroundings, of things that the judge can do to better protect themselves within the courtroom, outside of the courtroom. And I'd say overview, give more awareness. Because, typically, over the years, judges have not been terribly aware of security up until probably the last five or six years.

PHILLIPS: Do you think the issue -- or let me ask you this, first... are judges allowed to be armed in the courtroom? And are some judges armed in the courtroom?

SINCLAIR: I don't -- in my estimation, there is absolutely no doubt that the judiciary as a separate branch of government, that a judge would have a right to carry an arm or to carry any other type of personal protection that the judge deemed, you know, appropriate under the circumstances. And in answer to your question, are there judges that go armed? Yes, there are.

There are other judges that absolutely cannot even think of the idea of carrying a firearm. So it's a very personal matter for a particular judge.

What we teach is that if you're going to go armed or you're going to use any type of force, be it OC spray, be it a Taser gun, be it whatever, make sure that you're properly trained. Make sure also that you've made a personal decision that you're willing to use that if you had to.

PHILLIPS: So when we look statewide, state to state, are there any restrictions in any states? Or no matter where you're a judge, you are allowed to be armed if, indeed, you want to be?

SINCLAIR: Well, again, this is my personal belief. And my personal observation would be that I think because the judiciary is a separate branch of government, that the judge has an absolute right to protect the judge and the judge's family by whatever means the judge would deem appropriate.

Now, from state to state, you know, I can't tell you necessarily what each state says. But I would tell you that, you know, when we teach this nationally, you know, that's pretty much the view of most judges also, that they believe that they do have that right in their own respective states.

PHILLIPS: Have you taught any of the judges here in Georgia?

SINCLAIR: You know, I'm sure that I've had some Georgia judges. And I know this morning when I was able to hear about this with Judge Barnes, Judge Barnes, I did not know. But I am sure that I've had judges from the state of Georgia, without any doubt.

PHILLIPS: All right . So this is what we know... we do know that the suspect was not cuffed. Considering that, according to the defense attorney we just heard from here on the set here in Atlanta, he said last week when he was at the courthouse that this same suspect, Brian Nichols, actually tried to bring a knife into the courtroom in his boot. OK?

Now he's in court again, a week later. He's not cuffed. Does that make sense to you?

SINCLAIR: Well, you know, every case is so individualized, and trying to second-guess somebody is not a good idea. I mean, we had -- we had somebody get in our courthouse, and we're as careful we think as anybody could be. And we had somebody take a gun off of one of our security people about a year and a half ago.

Luckily, we were able to disarm the person, and it was without any type of a tragic incident. But it could of happened to us.

We learned from that incident. And we're probably more careful than anybody else in the country. So until we have all of the facts and we know all of the circumstances, I don't think any of us would be wise to speculate on whether that was a good idea or a bad idea.

PHILLIPS: Yes. No doubt, a lot of people are learning from the situation that happened today. Judge Lee Sinclair on the phone with us from Canton, Ohio. The judge teaches other judges what to do in case of an emergency.

Sir, we appreciate your time today.

SINCLAIR: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: And we want to remind you, once again, we are waiting for a live news conference from Atlanta City Hall. We will take that for you live as soon as it happens.

Meanwhile, this man, Brian Nichols, still on the loose. If you know him, if you've seen him, or possibly the green Honda he might be driving, you are asked to contact authorities immediately. He could be armed, and as we know he's very dangerous.

We'll take a quick break. LIVE FROM continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Once again, to bring you up to date, an intense manhunt under way. There you see the signs of the times in the Atlanta metropolitan area. But that manhunt now extending well beyond Georgia into neighboring states.

This is the object of the hunt at the moment, 33-year-old Brian Nichols, 6'1", weighs 210 pounds. And police would like to have him apprehended as quickly as possible.

He is said to be driving perhaps a green Honda Accord with a Georgia license plate of 6584YN, although there is some sketchy information that leads us to believe maybe he is in some other sort of vehicle at this point. It is possible he attempted to carjack as many as three cars just to get to that green Honda Accord. So it's quite possible he may be using another vehicle.

It's been more than five hours now since the incident itself. So he could be very far away from Atlanta. Atlanta, the scene where this courtroom shooting occurred, killing three, injuring one other.

Could smarter guns help outsmart the bad guys, make it harder for criminals in courtrooms or elsewhere to get their hands on someone else's weapon? Of course that is apparently what happened at the Fulton County Superior Court today when police say the defendant grabbed that deputy's gun and where the shooting began.

Joining me now from New York City to talk about smart guns is Don Sebastian. He is the senior vice president of research and development for the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. And this is an organization that has really been in the vanguard in this research on so-called smart guns.

Dr. Sebastian, good to have you with us. Why don't you just quickly, in a layperson's terms, define the term "smart gun."

DON SEBASTIAN, N.J. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: Yes, it's a term that's used generally to describe any gun in which we use some element of electronics to identify an authorized user from someone who is not allowed to use the weapon. Some other terms that we use are personalized weapon technology or user authentication technology. They all mean the same thing.

O'BRIEN: Now, as...

SEBASTIAN: They're trying to use computing and science as a way of making sure that only the person who is supposed to shoot is allowed to shoot it.

O'BRIEN: Now this is shooting range video which you have done as part of your testing. What it shows essentially -- of course the real gun, once it gets into the market, wouldn't be attach attached to a computer. This is part of your testing capability.

SEBASTIAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: The idea is that it basically, with biometric technology, figures out and gives you a green light indicating this is the person who owns this gun, it's OK to pull the trigger. What is -- what is the gun capable of sensing in order to make that determination?

SEBASTIAN: Very well put. We've devised a unique biometric. That is, a science of human measurement that allows us to detect who is holding the gun at the moment of trigger pull based literally on the way that you grab the grip of the gun, the way that you apply pressure to that grip.

I have a demonstration gun here with me perhaps to give this some pictures to go with the words. So the grip of the gun, this blue plastic portion, has little tiny pressure transducers, little drum heads, that can pick up how hard I'm squeezing the gun while I'm pulling the trigger. So if you think of a weather map with isobars, the colored indications of how we have high and low pressure zones that move across the country to develop the weather, the same thing happens when we squeeze the gun -- we're creating zones of high and low pressure on the grip of the gun.

O'BRIEN: And that is unique like a fingerprint would be, that each person has a different, distinct grip?

SEBASTIAN: This is what's so amazing is that it is both unique and it's reproducible, meaning that when we do the pull of the trigger as a reflexive action, we're getting something which we do the same way over and over and over again. So it's unique to me as it is unique to you and we do it in a way that can be trained once and measured repeatedly against that trained set.

O'BRIEN: OK and the real rub, the real tricky part in all of this is making it fast enough to make that, you know, tenth of a second decision to say, oh, this is the owner, I'm going to fire. And, yet, not so sensitive that it would allow someone else, someone who you wouldn't want to fire that gun, to be able to do the same?

SEBASTIAN: True of all biometrics, in fact. You want to be sure that you have enough variation to capture normal variations. And, yet, at the same time, that you don't close the window so tight that the authorized user is, at some instances, not recognized as appropriate. Either allowing someone who is not supposed to fire it or blocking an authorized user are two things that would render the technology unacceptable in the marketplace.

O'BRIEN: Now you're a few years away from bringing things to market. There are things that are currently out there. We've done some stories over the years. As a matter of fact, I did one way back in '94, '95 with sort of a wristband technology, which essentially, using radio transmitters, identifies the proximity to the transmitter. So in other words, if the gun gets separated from the officer who has that transmitter on, as long as the transmitter stays with the officer, it renders the gun harmless. Does that kind of technology work pretty well?

SEBASTIAN: Very well put. Well, that's still a technology under development. The federal government sponsored work and really popularized the term smart gun in the early '90s to prevent much of the situation that we saw today, a weapon taken away from a police officer in close combat and used against him. And, at that time, the best available technology was the proximity sensor approach, radio frequency, I.D. tags.

We knew them back then as the shoplifting tags on clothing in the mall and now we know I.D. tagging is perhaps the replacement for the bar code in the future. But the idea is that something that you wear, whether it's a wristband, a badge, a ring, contains some of the electronics that responds to the radio frequency from the gun. And when you are too far away, the gun realizes that it doesn't have that authentication signal and turns off.

O'BRIEN: All right, just quickly then, so just to wrap it up here. Isn't it high time we got some of these -- this technology on the market?

SEBASTIAN: It sure is. It sure is. Too often we've confused gun safety with gun control and it's mired the development of the technology. It's unfortunate that we need tragedies like this to bring the situation to light. Let's hope that we can make some good out of a very, bad situation.

O'BRIEN: Don Sebastian is with the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. He is senior vice president of research and development. Thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it.

SEBASTIAN: Thank you for the time.

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Aired March 11, 2005 - 14:02   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, the search is on for a suspect after a judge, a court reporter and a deputy are shot dead at an Atlanta courthouse.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're following developments in this breaking story.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Murder in the court. Authorities say an apparently armed, highly- dangerous suspect is on the loose. It's all happening here in the city blocks surrounding the Fulton County courthouse in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. As you've seen in our wall-to-wall coverage, an esteemed superior court judge is dead, a court reporter is dead, a sheriff's deputy is dead, and another deputy wounded.

Our Gary Tuchman is at the center of all the chaos and he's going to bring us up to date -- Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we're just a few blocks away from you at CNN Center, where life here in downtown Atlanta is getting back to normal. But it will never get back to normal for the family members of these three victims who were shot and killed inside this courthouse.

The gunman still being looked for. And a search is being taken here in Georgia and in the neighboring states of Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina. It happened five hours ago inside that building behind me. That is the Fulton County Courthouse, eighth floor, rape trial in its fifth day, Brian Nichols accused of kidnapping and rape.

As the trial was about to start the day, Nichols lunged at a deputy who was inside the court room and grabbed her gun and then shot here in the head. That deputy is in the hospital in critical condition.

Nichols later fired, though, at a court reporter and the judge inside the courtroom, Judge Rowland Barnes. He killed them both.

He then walked down the stairway onto the street that you see, Martin Luther King Boulevard, where another deputy encountered him. Nichols then fired at that deputy. That deputy was killed.

Nichols then tried to carjack at least two vehicles, went inside this garage right across the street from the courthouse. This is called the underground parking garage where people who are driving to work in downtown Atlanta, many tourists park here. He pistol-whipped someone who got out of a car, demanded that that person get into the trunk.

That person, who happens to be a reporter for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" newspaper, refused to go in the truck. Nichols then took the car, went away, and since then authorities have been looking for him.

They're very concerned, obviously, because this man has nothing to lose now after killing three people, wounding another. But they're not exactly sure what vehicle he's in.

The vehicle he ultimately took was a Honda Accord, a green Honda accord. However authorities aren't truly convinced that he's still in that vehicle. They've been looking all over the Atlanta metropolitan area, including here in the downtown area. But right now the search doesn't seem to be centered here.

Traffic is once again moving. It seems to be centered in the northern part of Fulton County. This is the central part of the county.

He apparently -- this man used to live in the northern part of that county, and that's where they've been looking. But they're looking all over the southeastern United States now because it's been more than five hours since he left. Once again, a man who they feel has nothing to lose is still at large.

Back to you, Miles and Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Gary, just a quick question. Have you heard from any of your sources out there as you work this story if anybody fired back at the gunman? Do you know that when he took the gun from the deputy, if it happened in the courtroom, outside of the courtroom, and if anybody responded to the scene and fired back?

TUCHMAN: Here is what we know. It either happened in the courtroom or in a room next to the courtroom, but definitely on the eighth floor.

We don't know if anyone fired back upstairs. We do know, according to a witness down here, that the deputy was not able to fire back, that he ran towards this person and this person then fired the gun at him.

One thing I do want to point out. A lot of our viewers are wondering, you know, how does a man lunge at a gun who is being tried for rape? Because what happens in a trial, there is a jury there, in order for the jury not to presume this man is guilty, he doesn't have to be handcuffed, doesn't have to be manacled, is allowed to wear common clothes, and, therefore, something like this can happen.

And I can tell you, about five years ago, I was covering a court case in New York City where there were terrorist suspects. They were having a hearing and there were five or six of these terror suspects.

They were sitting in the jury box because it was a preliminary hearing. And while we were sitting there, one of these terror suspects jumped out of the jury box and started running towards the deputy.

There were like four or five deputies in the room, and they tackled this guy on the ground in front of the judge. We were very scared for several seconds. We didn't know what was going to happen.

We didn't know if he had helpers inside the courtroom, we didn't know what was going to happen. And we didn't know what he was going to do.

But this kind of thing has happened before. And under the system we have in this country, it could happen again.

PHILLIPS: So, Gary, do we know if indeed Brian Nichols was cuffed? And if he was cuffed, was he cuffed from the front or was he cuffed from the back?

TUCHMAN: No, Brian Nichols was not cuffed because he was in there for his...

PHILLIPS: Definitely not cuffed?

TUCHMAN: Definitely not cuffed. He was in there for his trial and the jury was there, and you're not cuffed. You are cuffed very often when you have a hearing, when it's just before the judge, when it's not up to a jury to decide if someone is guilty or not guilty.

We see that often, that suspects are manacled, their feed, they're handcuffed. But when it comes to your trial, when it comes to those 12 members of the jury who are going to be watching you, you sit there because you are innocent until you're proven guilty and, therefore, you can't be wearing handcuffs.

PHILLIPS: Gary, what about when he was in court previously, before this court date? Did he ever try to cause any trouble or bring anything into the courtroom or act up or try to, you know, bully anybody around?

TUCHMAN: Well, you bring up an important part of the story, Kyra, that he was in court for the same trial. Previously the trial ended in a mistrial.

It was then up to the state of Georgia whether they wanted to try him again. They made a decision to try him again. So the second trial in this rape and kidnapping charge began last Monday.

This was going to be the fifth day of the trial. As far as whether he's caused problems before, we don't know. We do know that some people are saying that he was trying to intimidate the jury by staring at them during this second trial. That's one of the things we're hearing right now.

PHILLIPS: All right. Do me a favor, Gary. We're going to move on to our next guest because I'm told evidently, allegedly the last time he was in the courthouse he tried to bring a knife in his boot. So we're going to get more details on that with our next guest with Miles.

Gary Tuchman outside of the courtroom there. Thank you so much. We'll continue to check in with you, of course.

O'BRIEN: Dennis Scheib is an attorney who knows the courthouse well. As a matter of fact, has a murder case right now before the late Judge Barnes now.

I want to talk to you about the judge personally in a moment. But first, let's talk about this point that you just brought up, that on a previous occurrence -- in his previous trial or on a previous day in this current trial, I'm not sure which, he tried to get a knife inside the courthouse?

DENNIS SCHEIB, ATTORNEY: I was told by a deputy I spoke to outside the court. They were talking about him, and last week during his trial, somehow, some way, he had what happened to be something like a knife in his boot they took off of him.

O'BRIEN: All right. So once that happens, presumably major alarm bells go off, warning flags. And would a prisoner be treated differently subsequent to that?

SCHEIB: Well, he could be. I mean, I've had murder trials where the people are supposed -- they're not supposed to be cuffed generally in front of the jury. You don't want them to know they're in custody, so forth.

But I've had them where they've worn a certain type of braces where they cannot move, or even shock advises where, if they were to get up and do anything, they could go ahead and shock them. They may not -- I've even known of some -- it's up to a judge. A judge can go ahead and, if this person needs to be cuffed, shackled, they can be cuffed for security of the courtroom.

O'BRIEN: And, of course, that opens up the possibility of appeal later because you could make a case as a defense attorney that that tainted the view of that suspect and the view of the jury. And that might have been what was on the mind of the judge in this case.

SCHEIB: Yes, because you have, in this case, a very fair, good judge. I mean, a great judge.

But the courts have said all the way up to the Supreme Court it's up to the judge. If the judge wants to go ahead and deal with it in a certain way, as long as it's security, it's within his discretion to do so.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's back up and talk about the big picture here. You know that courthouse as well as any attorney. What is your general sense about how secure it is?

SCHEIB: Security is terrible over there. I mean, I've been screaming for years -- and I don't -- and this is a tragic situation to say, I told you so. I've spoken to judges, defense lawyers. Danny, who was running for sheriff, who did not make it as sheriff, was going to go ahead and retain my services to go ahead and work with the deputies as far as security.

But I've been all over this state, other states. I was a police officer 13 years, deputy sheriff five years. I've been in martial arts for 40 some years. I've trained with the Japanese police.

And security over there, the amount of deputies they had, the way they did security, the way they lend themselves to be attacked like they did today, I mean, it was bound to happen. And I've told many judges, and just like -- it just went deaf ear.

O'BRIEN: So the obvious holes were the number of deputies or some of the tactics they use, or both?

SCHEIB: Both. Some of the tactics. And this one deputy who is involved in this, I pulled her about two years ago. I pulled her out of a jail cell when she was going in there to wake somebody up that they needed, and she walked in the jail cell with eight or nine other defendants in there with a gun on.

And I grabbed her and pulled her out and said, "What are you doing?" And explained to her, "You don't go in there that way."

I mean, they do not have enough deputies to deal with the scenario. And their tactics is just terrible. They approach to many defendants with guns.

DeKalb County is a prime example of a very professional-run scenario. They know how to deal with them. They do not approach defendants with guns. Another deputy will take it, and they have great security over there.

O'BRIEN: Well, let's bring up that point. We're speaking, of course, about DeKalb County, which is the neighboring county here to Fulton County in Atlanta, with a big chunk of Atlanta in DeKalb County.

This overall question has always bothered me covering trials over the years as a reporter. You're in a sanitized area, you've gone through a magnetometer. Why do you even introduce guns at all? Should it be treated like a prison would be, which is the case of the guards not having weapons on them?

SCHEIB: Well, I've always wondered about that. But you could have a scenario where somebody could sneak something in -- or you could have -- they could -- like 9/11. I mean, I think everything was plastic there. I mean, they could do that, and they could take something in there.

There's a weapon -- during a trial, they could have -- they could pick up a weapon that wouldn't have bullets in it, but they could use a weapon. They could pick up a chair. And deputies may need to use deadly force. But I don't think they're trained well enough to deal with people the way they need to deal with them.

O'BRIEN: What else do they need to be doing?

SCHEIB: They need to look at the whole security system the way they have it here. It's just terrible. In Fulton County, it's terrible. And three people have died today to show it.

If anything comes out of this, I hope it's better security in Fulton County, and maybe in different areas of Georgia.

O'BRIEN: A personal note for a moment. You knew the judge well. You actually employed his daughter, who is on her way to law school, spoke with her this morning.

SCHEIB: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Just give us a sense of the personal loss here.

SCHEIB: Well, his daughter happened to call me at 7:45 this morning, just -- I haven't spoken to her in a while. She actually worked for me for a while, and she was wanting a phone number.

And we spoke, and I said, "What are you doing now?" And she said, "I'm getting ready to go to law school." And I said, "Well, you want to be like your dad?"

And Kiley (ph) is just real sweet. And Rowland Barnes and Kiley (ph) were very, very close.

And I've known him almost 20 years. And we'd go back in the chambers and discuss personal things, and I would discuss professional things. And two weeks, the one deputy that was shot today bought a big box of candy. I think it was for her daughter's school or something, and I went back in the chambers, and the judge usually was eating with his staff. And I gave him the whole box of candy because I'm getting too fat, I don't need it anyway.

So -- and he just took it. He's one of these people you can approach. He was on the bench very, very professional. But he is just-- he's going to be sorely missed.

I mean, he was -- he could teach judges a thing about how to be, you know, a tough judge, but decent. He did not have what some lawyers refer to as "robitis," which is went to his head. I mean, he was just an approachable, very, very decent, very smart man.

O'BRIEN: Dennis Scheib, attorney at law here in Atlanta, Georgia, spends a lot of time in Fulton County Courthouse and obviously knows the scene as well as the people there well. Thanks for your time -- Kyra.

SCHEIB: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, we are awaiting news conference at Atlanta City Hall. We're going to bring that to you live as soon as it happens. Meanwhile, we're also going to talk with a judge who teaches a course on courthouse safety. Talk about just how is it possible that a man is able to get a gun in there and have the opportunity to shoot innocent individuals. We'll have more of that just ahead on LIVE FROM.

O'BRIEN: Also ahead, we'll talk with some other people who are giving us the latest on the search for the suspect, 33-year-old Brian Nichols, who is perhaps as far away as other states at this point, more than four hours after the shooting which occurred. And we'll go in-depth on so-called smart gun technology as well, how it works, how it might prevent someday shootings like this from happening.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: And if you're just tuning in, once again, you're watching rolling coverage right now. We'll bring you up to date.

A gunman still on the loose, three people dead, including a superior court judge, a court reporter, and a deputy. We are expecting a live news conference from here in Atlanta, Georgia, at the LA -- or at the Atlanta City Hall, rather.

Once again, this is the man police are looking for, Brian Nichols. He could be in the area. He could have headed outside the area.

He's believed to be driving a green Honda Accord with this license plate: 6584YN. Now, keep in mind this is a man that has already swapped cars at least three other times.

He is known to be armed and dangerous. He is on the loose. If you have any information with regard to this car, this license plate, or this man, Brian Nichols, we ask that you contact authorities, Fulton County Police here in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meanwhile, the tense emotional nature of a legal battle, well, it can set up a volatile situation, just like what we saw today at the Atlanta courthouse. And security is a big concern for courthouses across the country because of what we saw today.

Judge Lee Sinclair of Stark County, Ohio, court teaches others what to do in case of an emergency. And Judge Sinclair is on the phone with us right now from Canton.

Judge, can you hear me OK?

JUDGE LEE SINCLAIR, STARK COUNTY, OHIO: I can. Thank you for having me join you.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's a pleasure to have you.

First of all, tell us what you teach with regard to security in the courthouse. And then I want to just get your opinion on what we know so far about what happened today. SINCLAIR: We teach pretty much an overview to judges from throughout the United States. I do also quite of bit of it in Ohio and pretty much all over the nation, about making the judge aware of their surroundings, of things that the judge can do to better protect themselves within the courtroom, outside of the courtroom. And I'd say overview, give more awareness. Because, typically, over the years, judges have not been terribly aware of security up until probably the last five or six years.

PHILLIPS: Do you think the issue -- or let me ask you this, first... are judges allowed to be armed in the courtroom? And are some judges armed in the courtroom?

SINCLAIR: I don't -- in my estimation, there is absolutely no doubt that the judiciary as a separate branch of government, that a judge would have a right to carry an arm or to carry any other type of personal protection that the judge deemed, you know, appropriate under the circumstances. And in answer to your question, are there judges that go armed? Yes, there are.

There are other judges that absolutely cannot even think of the idea of carrying a firearm. So it's a very personal matter for a particular judge.

What we teach is that if you're going to go armed or you're going to use any type of force, be it OC spray, be it a Taser gun, be it whatever, make sure that you're properly trained. Make sure also that you've made a personal decision that you're willing to use that if you had to.

PHILLIPS: So when we look statewide, state to state, are there any restrictions in any states? Or no matter where you're a judge, you are allowed to be armed if, indeed, you want to be?

SINCLAIR: Well, again, this is my personal belief. And my personal observation would be that I think because the judiciary is a separate branch of government, that the judge has an absolute right to protect the judge and the judge's family by whatever means the judge would deem appropriate.

Now, from state to state, you know, I can't tell you necessarily what each state says. But I would tell you that, you know, when we teach this nationally, you know, that's pretty much the view of most judges also, that they believe that they do have that right in their own respective states.

PHILLIPS: Have you taught any of the judges here in Georgia?

SINCLAIR: You know, I'm sure that I've had some Georgia judges. And I know this morning when I was able to hear about this with Judge Barnes, Judge Barnes, I did not know. But I am sure that I've had judges from the state of Georgia, without any doubt.

PHILLIPS: All right . So this is what we know... we do know that the suspect was not cuffed. Considering that, according to the defense attorney we just heard from here on the set here in Atlanta, he said last week when he was at the courthouse that this same suspect, Brian Nichols, actually tried to bring a knife into the courtroom in his boot. OK?

Now he's in court again, a week later. He's not cuffed. Does that make sense to you?

SINCLAIR: Well, you know, every case is so individualized, and trying to second-guess somebody is not a good idea. I mean, we had -- we had somebody get in our courthouse, and we're as careful we think as anybody could be. And we had somebody take a gun off of one of our security people about a year and a half ago.

Luckily, we were able to disarm the person, and it was without any type of a tragic incident. But it could of happened to us.

We learned from that incident. And we're probably more careful than anybody else in the country. So until we have all of the facts and we know all of the circumstances, I don't think any of us would be wise to speculate on whether that was a good idea or a bad idea.

PHILLIPS: Yes. No doubt, a lot of people are learning from the situation that happened today. Judge Lee Sinclair on the phone with us from Canton, Ohio. The judge teaches other judges what to do in case of an emergency.

Sir, we appreciate your time today.

SINCLAIR: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: And we want to remind you, once again, we are waiting for a live news conference from Atlanta City Hall. We will take that for you live as soon as it happens.

Meanwhile, this man, Brian Nichols, still on the loose. If you know him, if you've seen him, or possibly the green Honda he might be driving, you are asked to contact authorities immediately. He could be armed, and as we know he's very dangerous.

We'll take a quick break. LIVE FROM continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Once again, to bring you up to date, an intense manhunt under way. There you see the signs of the times in the Atlanta metropolitan area. But that manhunt now extending well beyond Georgia into neighboring states.

This is the object of the hunt at the moment, 33-year-old Brian Nichols, 6'1", weighs 210 pounds. And police would like to have him apprehended as quickly as possible.

He is said to be driving perhaps a green Honda Accord with a Georgia license plate of 6584YN, although there is some sketchy information that leads us to believe maybe he is in some other sort of vehicle at this point. It is possible he attempted to carjack as many as three cars just to get to that green Honda Accord. So it's quite possible he may be using another vehicle.

It's been more than five hours now since the incident itself. So he could be very far away from Atlanta. Atlanta, the scene where this courtroom shooting occurred, killing three, injuring one other.

Could smarter guns help outsmart the bad guys, make it harder for criminals in courtrooms or elsewhere to get their hands on someone else's weapon? Of course that is apparently what happened at the Fulton County Superior Court today when police say the defendant grabbed that deputy's gun and where the shooting began.

Joining me now from New York City to talk about smart guns is Don Sebastian. He is the senior vice president of research and development for the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. And this is an organization that has really been in the vanguard in this research on so-called smart guns.

Dr. Sebastian, good to have you with us. Why don't you just quickly, in a layperson's terms, define the term "smart gun."

DON SEBASTIAN, N.J. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: Yes, it's a term that's used generally to describe any gun in which we use some element of electronics to identify an authorized user from someone who is not allowed to use the weapon. Some other terms that we use are personalized weapon technology or user authentication technology. They all mean the same thing.

O'BRIEN: Now, as...

SEBASTIAN: They're trying to use computing and science as a way of making sure that only the person who is supposed to shoot is allowed to shoot it.

O'BRIEN: Now this is shooting range video which you have done as part of your testing. What it shows essentially -- of course the real gun, once it gets into the market, wouldn't be attach attached to a computer. This is part of your testing capability.

SEBASTIAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: The idea is that it basically, with biometric technology, figures out and gives you a green light indicating this is the person who owns this gun, it's OK to pull the trigger. What is -- what is the gun capable of sensing in order to make that determination?

SEBASTIAN: Very well put. We've devised a unique biometric. That is, a science of human measurement that allows us to detect who is holding the gun at the moment of trigger pull based literally on the way that you grab the grip of the gun, the way that you apply pressure to that grip.

I have a demonstration gun here with me perhaps to give this some pictures to go with the words. So the grip of the gun, this blue plastic portion, has little tiny pressure transducers, little drum heads, that can pick up how hard I'm squeezing the gun while I'm pulling the trigger. So if you think of a weather map with isobars, the colored indications of how we have high and low pressure zones that move across the country to develop the weather, the same thing happens when we squeeze the gun -- we're creating zones of high and low pressure on the grip of the gun.

O'BRIEN: And that is unique like a fingerprint would be, that each person has a different, distinct grip?

SEBASTIAN: This is what's so amazing is that it is both unique and it's reproducible, meaning that when we do the pull of the trigger as a reflexive action, we're getting something which we do the same way over and over and over again. So it's unique to me as it is unique to you and we do it in a way that can be trained once and measured repeatedly against that trained set.

O'BRIEN: OK and the real rub, the real tricky part in all of this is making it fast enough to make that, you know, tenth of a second decision to say, oh, this is the owner, I'm going to fire. And, yet, not so sensitive that it would allow someone else, someone who you wouldn't want to fire that gun, to be able to do the same?

SEBASTIAN: True of all biometrics, in fact. You want to be sure that you have enough variation to capture normal variations. And, yet, at the same time, that you don't close the window so tight that the authorized user is, at some instances, not recognized as appropriate. Either allowing someone who is not supposed to fire it or blocking an authorized user are two things that would render the technology unacceptable in the marketplace.

O'BRIEN: Now you're a few years away from bringing things to market. There are things that are currently out there. We've done some stories over the years. As a matter of fact, I did one way back in '94, '95 with sort of a wristband technology, which essentially, using radio transmitters, identifies the proximity to the transmitter. So in other words, if the gun gets separated from the officer who has that transmitter on, as long as the transmitter stays with the officer, it renders the gun harmless. Does that kind of technology work pretty well?

SEBASTIAN: Very well put. Well, that's still a technology under development. The federal government sponsored work and really popularized the term smart gun in the early '90s to prevent much of the situation that we saw today, a weapon taken away from a police officer in close combat and used against him. And, at that time, the best available technology was the proximity sensor approach, radio frequency, I.D. tags.

We knew them back then as the shoplifting tags on clothing in the mall and now we know I.D. tagging is perhaps the replacement for the bar code in the future. But the idea is that something that you wear, whether it's a wristband, a badge, a ring, contains some of the electronics that responds to the radio frequency from the gun. And when you are too far away, the gun realizes that it doesn't have that authentication signal and turns off.

O'BRIEN: All right, just quickly then, so just to wrap it up here. Isn't it high time we got some of these -- this technology on the market?

SEBASTIAN: It sure is. It sure is. Too often we've confused gun safety with gun control and it's mired the development of the technology. It's unfortunate that we need tragedies like this to bring the situation to light. Let's hope that we can make some good out of a very, bad situation.

O'BRIEN: Don Sebastian is with the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. He is senior vice president of research and development. Thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it.

SEBASTIAN: Thank you for the time.

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