Over the Brink

"I guess this has been a bad year for justice, a bad year," said U.S. District Judge Fred Nichol, 62. At the very least, it had been a bad eight months as Nichol presided in his St. Paul, Minn., courtroom over the trial of Indian Leaders Dennis Banks, 42, and Russell Means, 34, on charges stemming from last year's 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee, S. Dak. After Means called a witness a "liar," Nichol cited him for contempt; later he threw Defense Lawyers Mark Lane and William Kunstler in jail overnight for arguing with him. The prosecution annoyed the judge no less. Nichol accused the FBI of "arrogance" and "misconduct" and Chief U.S. Prosecutor R. (for Richard) D. Hurd of deceiving the court.

Rather Ashamed. Last week Nichol did what he had earlier threatened to do: he dismissed all charges (three of assault, one each of larceny and conspiracy) against the two defendants. "It's only fair to say I am now over the brink," declared the exasperated judge. What pushed Nichol over was Kurd's refusal to allow the case to be decided by only 11 jurors after the twelfth became ill. "I'm rather ashamed that the Government was not represented better in this case," said Nichol in the course of an hour-long denunciation of the prosecution.

Meanwhile, Attorney General William Saxbe, who has been brooding for some time about the Justice Department's poor performance in "political" cases, appointed a task force to study the problem. As one department aide explained: "You name it--the Berrigans, the Gainesville trial, the Camden thing--we blew all of them, and more."

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