A NEW APPROACH TO COURTROOM SECURITY
N-Day plus one
Across the state from Conway Corners, in the capital city, a kidnapping murder trial had been going on for several days. The defendant, a 49-year-old, self-proclaimed white supremacist named Charles Dennis Ball was accused of kidnapping a young couple from a freeway rest stop, killing the 20-year-old Asian-American man immediately and raping the 21-year-old Hispanic woman several times before killing her, all while in violation of Ohio parole as an unregistered sex offender. He had a lengthy criminal record and had already been convicted of a federal gun charge which promised to keep him in prison until he was into his seventies. During a previous trial in Indiana, he had attacked his own lawyer, a judge, and a witness in court with a smuggled knife. He was being handled with all available security. All the victims in the crimes he had been convicted or accused of committing had been members of racial minorities.
Lavelle Price was the sheriff’s deputy in charge of courtroom security which included transporting prisoners between the jail and the courtrooms. He was the first black man to have moved so high up in that sheriff’s department. When he had left the court house on N-Day afternoon he noticed two naked men and a naked woman walking along the sidewalk across the street. He had been busy and had not really thought about the ramifications of Bear v. Beardsley much. He had been busy and like many others had assumed that legalized nudity would never actually happen.
An idea suddenly hit him. If these people could move about in public nude, why couldn’t the county move Charles Dennis Ball from cell to courtroom naked? He picked up his cell phone and called the sheriff. It was immediately clear to him that he had piqued the sheriff’s curiosity, but the sheriff told him that he would have to check with the District Attorney’s office before doing anything,
There were many telephone calls made, emails sent, and references looked up overnight as attorneys, local and state, looked into the matter. When Price returned to work in the morning, he had a message from the sheriff: “Go ahead. Take CDB to the courtroom naked. He won’t be hiding anything under his clothes.”
Price knew how he wanted to handle it. He told guards to seize all of Ball’s clothing while he was showering. He made sure he was there in person when the shower was over and explained the situation to the defendant. After receiving many obscenities and racial epithets from Ball and giving a few of his own back, another deputy approached the distracted inmate and slipped handcuffs on him. Before Charles Dennis Ball knew what was happening, he was being escorted through the tunnel toward the court house and sitting at a courtroom table waiting for lawyers, judge, and jurors to arrive.
Cynthia Boswicz was Ball’s public defender. Despite the fact that she despised Ball, she was committed to ensuring that he had all his rights respected. So she was aghast when she entered the court room and found him sitting there with no clothes on.
“What the fucking hell is going on here?” she shouted at the deputies who were watching Ball.
“He’s naked, that’s all, counselor,” Price said, coming from the other door to the courtroom. We could not find any law or rule which said that he is required to be dressed and we brought him here that way for security reasons, at least until the judge orders otherwise. This really ought to make you feel better. He has attacked his own lawyer in court before, you know.”
“And that’s why you fuckers are here. You’re supposed to be protecting all of us here, not running some kind of kinky sado-masochistic thing.”
“That’s what we’re doing today, protecting you and everybody else who comes in here today, giving the security you all are entitled too,” Price answered. “The Supreme Court has given us a new tool and we’re just using it.”
“They said that people were not required to wear clothes. They never said you could strip a defendant who wanted them, in a courtroom of all places.”
“They said that clothing is no longer a requirement. Just think of that as a new, special cases jail uniform.”
When the judge entered the courtroom she had many of the same questions as the defense attorney. She stated that she would not abide the nudity of a defendant in front of the jury and ordered the sheriff’s office to bring a robe for Ball to wear. After they did, she allowed the jury to enter the room and the trial to proceed.
Reporters who were there to cover the trial had a new story to cover also.
Lawyers, judges, and legislators had something else to consider. Cynthia Boswicz attempted to get the judge and a higher court to allow her client to wear his clothes for the remainder of the trial, but was rebuffed and the sheriff’s office continued to transport Ball without his clothes on until the trial ended the next Tuesday, giving him a robe only after had arrived at he courtroom.
Ball was convicted on all counts. Boswicz is working on an appeal, claiming that her client’s not being allowed to be properly dressed influenced the jury against her client.
Public and private security people are studying whether or how they can use nakedness as a security tool.
