AUBURN – The next time Louis Rubino Jr. stands in front of a judge, his hands likely will be handcuffed to a belt around his waist.
That wasn’t the case last week when the Lewiston man lurched suddenly toward an Androscoggin County Superior Court judge, yelling in protest.
A sheriff’s deputy restrained him with an arm around the throat before Rubino was escorted from the courtroom by three officers.
He erupted after pleading not guilty to charges related to the raid on his apartment that doubled as a methamphetamine lab. The judge had not allowed Rubino visits with his 3-year-old daughter. It was the third time he had become unruly in court.
If Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Sgt. Martin Fournier had his way, the hands of every prisoner who stepped into Superior Court would be cuffed the entire time.
But Fournier, who heads up prisoner transport for the county, said the judges set the rules. They prefer that defendants be unrestrained during appearances.
More than a dozen male prisoners from the adjoining Androscoggin County Jail were led on a gang chain into the courtroom Thursday morning. Once each was in place to take his seat, deputies unlocked his handcuffs, which were attached to a hardened-steel chain. They still were manacled at their ankles.
Rubino’s girlfriend, Donna Pagnani, the only woman in the group, remained handcuffed throughout the court proceedings.
Fournier said she had a history of behavioral problems. And now, so does Rubino.
He is well-known to officers in court, where he is often outspoken, Fournier said. But Rubino has never really posed a physical threat, Fournier said.
In 8th District Court, where Rubino first appeared on the drug charges, he acted up. There, he was handcuffed, along with all the other prisoners.
Most defendants are arraigned in that court shortly after arrest before their cases are transferred to the higher court.
Once they appear in Superior Court, they usually have had a chance to calm down and, if under the influence of drugs, come down, Fournier said.
“They know they need to behave,” he said.
Not safe enough
Uniformed officers who escort prisoners to court are barred by the chief justice from carrying firearms, Fournier said. Court security officers, who dress in plain clothes, carry side arms, he said.
Mike Coty, who oversees security officers for all Maine courts, said the state’s courts are not safe enough.
Only in rare, high-profile cases are defendants and members of the public screened before entering Maine’s state-run courtrooms. Maine is the only state in New England that doesn’t have full-time electronic screenings at the doors of every courtroom.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley has made court security the central theme of her annual state of the courts address for years.
In Lewiston recently, a man due in court for trial alerted his lawyer that he was despondent and needed psychiatric help. The man drove his van to a Lewiston hospital with a gun pointed at his head.
Coty imagines what would have happened if that gun had ended up in the courtroom instead.
“We are certainly at risk that somebody’s going to come in with a gun and shoot someone,” Coty said. “That is definitely a concern.”
The state’s courthouses need to be designed for the kind of people they house, the way federal courthouses are, and not like office buildings, he said.
“Security is everyone’s responsibility,” he said.
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