YORK ? A handcuffed criminal defendant who had just been sentenced to 15 years in prison punched his own lawyer in the face Tuesday in front of a judge, five attorneys and several others in a York County courtroom.
Lamarcus Williamson, 30, smashed assistant county public defender Dan Hall across the face, knocking him to the floor of the Moss Justice Center courtroom.
The punch, described by an angry Circuit Judge Michael Nettles in court as a ?roundhouse,? was captured by courtroom video security. A trio of court officers from the sheriff?s office immediately swarmed Williamson and took him to a holding cell after he punched Hall.
Afterward, Hall said, he had only ?a swollen lip and sore jaw, but I?ll be all right.?
Hall went to work Wednesday morning after getting decked on his 58th birthday. Williamson?s guilty plea to a slew of felonies had been the last case of the day, just minutes after 5 p.m. Tuesday.
?An inch higher, I would have had a broken nose,? Hall said. ?An inch lower, my front teeth would have been knocked out.
?A punch was not the best birthday present I have ever received.?
Williamson had been out of prison only a week in March when he attacked and choked a Winthrop University student at a Redbox movie kiosk in Rock Hill, said Misti Shelton, the assistant solicitor who prosecuted him. Police also found nine grams of crack cocaine on him, she said.
Williamson has prior convictions dating back to 2000 for drugs, assault and grand larceny, court testimony showed, and twice failed probation orders requiring him to serve full prison terms.
Nettles, a visiting judge from Florence, ordered that a contempt hearing for Williamson would be the courthouse?s first order of business Wednesday. He told Williamson in that hearing that there was ?no excuse? for punching anyone ? especially a defense lawyer whose job is to protect Williamson?s rights.
?Dan Hall wasn?t the one who caused you to sell drugs,? Nettles told Williamson.
Williamson then argued with Nettles, saying he lashed out Tuesday because prosecutors said he had committed several felonies. Moments before, however, Williamson had pleaded guilty to those crimes.
?I was upset because the solicitor was trying to incriminate me like I?m some bad guy,? Williamson said in court Wednesday. ?The solicitor was trying to say I destroyed this woman.?
The judge was not swayed.
?It is clear your conduct is not governed by rational thought,? Nettles said. Hall was ?just there to help you before you hit him with a roundhouse square in the mouth.?
Nettles sentenced Williamson to an additional six months in prison ? the maximum time he could give for contempt of court without Williamson?s having the right to a trial.
Sheriff?s investigators had not decided by late Wednesday yet whether Williamson will face assault charges for the punch.
?You can?t physically attack someone in a courtroom,? Nettles said Wednesday. ?This is the United States of America. That stuff happens in Third World countries, not here.?
Sixteenth Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett ? concerned both for the safety of his employees and other court personnel ? said courtroom violence cannot be tolerated.
He asked Nettles to give Williamson an even longer sentence than the 15 years for Tuesday?s conviction, citing his long record of violence and selling drugs. Nettles declined, stating that the previous sentence was done.
The six months from the contempt for hitting Hall will run at the end of the 15-year sentence, Nettles said.
No one else was hurt in the attack, which lasted just a few seconds.
Hall wasn?t Williamson?s main court-appointed lawyer. He was there to help Mark McKinnon, another public defender, who was on the other side of Williamson when he struck Hall.
Hall has been a lawyer for more than 25 years ? more than 15 of those as a prosecutor with the solicitor?s office. He also was a longtime municipal judge in York and has run for Circuit Court judge three times.
Verbal abuse from defendants is not unheard of, Hall said, but the punch he took is the first he has seen in court ? and the first time he?s been on the business end of a haymaker.
?It was shocking,? Hall said. ?But courtrooms are an atmosphere of tension, emotions and often irrational people.?
Handcuffing courtroom prisoners with their hands in front of their bodies is common practice, said both Hall and David Hamilton, the York County Clerk of Court. Defendants need to have the use of their hands to sign documents and to swear an oath when entering a plea.
?Courtroom security could not have handled it any better,? Hall said. ?They were flawless. I just took a pretty good shot.?
The sheriff?s office is in charge of the constables who handle courtroom security, and the bailiffs who assist the constables in the courtrooms work for the clerk?s office.
Sheriff Bruce Bryant, chief public defender Harry Dest and Hamilton agreed with Hall that there was no problem with the way Williamson was handled Tuesday.
Hamilton, who is responsible for security at the courthouse, said all proper procedures were followed and three deputies were directly behind Williamson at the time he hit Hall. Two courtroom clerks were sitting just a few feet in front of Williamson when he hit Hall. A probation official was nearby.
?There was no way they could have known the defendant was going to do what he did,? Hamilton said Wednesday. ?It was unfortunate. The guy was irrational.?
Danger is inherent in a public defender?s job, Dest said, because clients often are sent to prison. Tuesday?s assault of a lawyer was the first in Dest?s 20 years on the job.
?Courthouse security did an excellent job,? Dest said. ?There was no lapse in security.?
Shelton, the prosecutor, said after the contempt hearing that she noticed Williamson peering over his shoulder at her several times during Tuesday?s hearing.
?I had a sixth sense; something told me something was going to happen,? said Shelton, who was at a prosecution table near Williamson just before the attack. She said she moved away just as Williamson moved to strike Hall.
?But I had no idea that he would actually hit someone,? she said.
Immediately after Wednesday?s contempt hearing, Hall was back at work, assisting other indigent clients accused of crimes.
?It is a great job defending people,? he said. ?It is a necessary part of an orderly society, and just because I get hit in the courtroom doesn?t dampen my zeal for defending other people.
?I feel safe at work today and will continue to feel safe. This was one time.?
VIDEO OF THE ASSAULT
Source: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/10/03/4310075/police-public-defender-assaulted.html
michelle malkin october baby sugarland 16 and pregnant ludwig mies van der rohe jamie lynn sigler mega millions jackpot
Student voter pledge card