BY DAN HORN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Andrew Conlon kept his eyes fixed on the young man in the back of the courtroom, waiting for him to explode.
After 25 years as a court clerk and bailiff in Hamilton County, Mr. Conlon knew a short fuse when he saw one. This guy's was just about gone.
"You dead!" the man finally shouted, lunging for a teen-ager seated nearby. Within seconds, the place erupted into a wild brawl involving more than a dozen courtroom spectators, sheriff's deputies and police officers.
"It was incredible," recalls Mr. Conlon. "It looked like something on Jerry Springer."
For Mr. Conlon and other courthouse veterans, the melee last April outside Judge Thomas Crush's courtroom was yet another indicator of a growing lack of respect for the judicial system.
A series of similar incidents this year has made civility in the courthouse -- or the lack of it -- a major concern for the hundreds of judges, lawyers and security officers who work there every day. Some see the problem as a symptom of America's moral decline, another product of a talk-show mentality that embraces public displays of anger and violence.
But even in an age when televised fistfights are packaged as prime-time entertainment, it is still shocking to many that the same bad behavior is creeping into courtrooms.
"Going to court used to be like going to church," says Dale Menkhaus, commander of the Hamilton County sheriff's court services division. "But nothing's sacred anymore."
Although his office only recently began documenting courtroom disturbances, the numbers appear to support Mr. Menkhaus' observation. In 1997, the sheriff's department recorded 488 incidents of violence or threatening acts in Hamilton County's juvenile, domestic relations and common pleas courtrooms.
What the statistics don't show, Mr. Menkhaus says, is the increasingly brazen behavior of the offenders. He says shouting matches and threats have become daily occurrences.
The brawl outside Judge Crush's courtroom is among the most severe examples of how quickly an emotional situation can turn violent.
The trouble started after the judge sentenced four teens to prison for beating a Western Hills High School student nearly to death.
Pandemonium broke out after Larry Wright, a relative of one of the teens, began shouting at the victim, 17-year-old Brendan Rice. The fight spilled into the hallway, where officers tackled and handcuffed four people.
"The violence is increasing," Judge Crush says. "Violence is not new. But these big fights, that's new."
Concern is so great that the Ohio Supreme Court has formed a committee to study the trend. The group already has suggested major changes in security procedures, and is preparing to launch a state academy to train and certify all security personnel.
Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton says the committee's work would not have been necessary just a decade ago.
"Back then, you just didn't see the systemic problem we have today," she says. "It used to be people would come into court with a very respectful manner. They would dress up and they'd be quiet in the room."
She knew times had changed on her final day as a common pleas judge in Franklin County. After she sentenced a young man to jail, a deputy searched him and found a knife and a bag of marijuana. In the years since, she has heard far worse stories from other judges.
"In any court, you're dealing with a hotbed of emotions and a lot of volatility," she says. "It's very emotional."
At least a half-dozen Cincinnati courtrooms have seen that emotion boil over this year.
Judge Ann Marie Tracey's Hamilton County Common Pleas courtroom became a battleground when a man tried to run after the judge revoked his bond. The ensuing struggle with sheriff's deputies knocked over benches, broke chairs and snapped a flagpole in half.
"Passions run very high," Judge Tracey says. "These things can turn deadly in seconds."
Another incident occurred in June outside the courtroom of Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker. During an assault case, a fight broke out between several women who were relatives of the defendant and the victim.
When he went out to check the damage later, the judge saw overturned benches and large clumps of hair strewn all over the floor.
The next day, one of the women visited his chambers to apologize. "Did you get your hair pulled?" the judge asked.
"No," she answered. "But I did some hair pullin'."
The judge says he sees more of that attitude every day. "People don't have any respect for anybody anymore," he says. "There's no respect for parents, for teachers, for police. Why should a judge in court be any different?"
For Mr. Menkhaus and his 67 sheriff's deputies, the goal is not to change society but to manage the troubles it brings into the courthouse. During the past few years, the sheriff has installed metal detectors, added security details and closed several entrances to the courthouse.
He says the security checks are perhaps the best way to measure the threat of violence. The guards at those checkpoints confiscated 440 weapons last year, including guns, knives, Mace, clubs and brass knuckles.
Some of the weapons were ingeniously hidden: A bright green comb becomes a knife when the handle is removed; a tube of lipstick sprouts a razor when the bottom is turned.
And those weapons are only the ones that made it to the metal detectors. Mr. Menkhaus says deputies routinely see people walk through the entrance, look at the checkpoints and immediately walk back out. "When people see the detectors, they go outside and dump the weapons in the bushes," he says. "We find them there all the time."
For court veterans like Matt Hensley, chief of security in juvenile court, the new security measures are an unfortunate but necessary fact of life. Without them, he says, no one would feel safe inside a building that is supposed to be a sanctuary from the streets.
"Times are changing," he says. "But we don't want people to be scared coming into the justice system."
