Convicted Killer’s Ex-Lawyer Testifies at Appeal Hearing

The former attorney for a Death Row inmate appealing his murder conviction testified Thursday that he asked that Bernard Lee Hamilton be restrained with chains at his trial because he was violent and had made threats against court personnel.

Tom Ryan testified before U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster, who is considering Hamilton’s appeal that placing him in chains in front of the jury unfairly prejudiced him.

Hamilton, 38, the son of a now-deceased Baptist minister from Linda Vista, was convicted in January, 1981, of first-degree murder in the slaying of Eleanore Buchanan, 28, whose body--minus the head and hands--was found in East County in May, 1979.

Ryan told the judge he was concerned that Hamilton might do something violent in front of the jury and make them prejudice against him.

“I saw someone who was impulsive, who acted out when confronted with something unpleasant, who was violent to other people, who picked on people who were vulnerable,” said Ryan, defending the use of chains. “I think Mr. Hamilton operated under his own rules. I felt he might attack people spontaneously.”

Ryan said Hamilton had made vague threats during the trial against the two prosecutors, the judge and a bailiff.

“He said he would take it out on those people who were railroading him,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he interviewed someone who told him Hamilton had said he would attack someone in court.

Under questioning by Hamilton’s appellate attorney, Richard Camino, Ryan said Hamilton didn’t specify exactly what action he would take in court.

Ryan said he asked the trial judge to have Hamilton chained out of concern for “the safety of the people who were next to him in addition to acting out in front of the jury.” Ryan said Hamilton jabbed his co-counsel in the side with a pencil “to get her attention.”

Ryan also said that, even though Hamilton was chained, he was still able to write notes to him during the trial.

Hamilton is also appealing his conviction on grounds that Ryan was incompetent because he failed to get an expert to testify that the victim was probably already dead from a knife wound to the stomach when her head and hands were severed.

Ryan testified that he could find no expert to predict whether Buchanan was alive or dead when she was beheaded.

He also told Brewster that blood tests showed that the victim’s blood was on Hamilton’s shoe when he was arrested--weeks after the slaying--in Marietta, Okla.