Courthouse gunman avoids death sentence

December 13, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta courthouse gunman who killed a judge and three other people avoided a death sentence Friday when jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision on his sentence.

Superior Court Judge James Bodiford is required by state law to sentence Brian Nichols to life, and will decide in a hearing scheduled for early today whether that will include the possibility of parole. It is likely Nichols would spend the rest of his life behind bars regardless of the decision.

Prosecutors had urged jurors to sentence Nichols to death after he was convicted last month of murder and dozens of other counts in the 2005 killings. The 37-year-old was on trial for rape when he grabbed a guard’s gun and fatally shot the judge, a court reporter and a sheriff’s deputy at the courthouse. He fled and killed a federal agent in an Atlanta neighborhood.

Anything short of a death sentence was viewed as a failure for prosecutors. They turned down an offer by Nichols’ attorneys last year for him to plead guilty to the murder charges if the state took the death penalty off the table. Both sides have spent millions of dollars since in legal fees to try the case.

Nichols sat emotionless throughout the hearing, while relatives of the victims looked downtrodden.

Lawyers from both sides refused to comment until after today’s sentencing decision, as did the family members of the victims. Court spokesman Don Plummer said the jurors, who also refused to comment, were “exhausted and relieved.”

“They said they felt like they had been here forever,” said Plummer.

Death sentences in Georgia require a unanimous jury decision. The jurors deliberated for more than 30 hours over four days before telling Bodiford around noon Thursday they were deadlocked 9-3, with nine in favor of death and three in favor of life without parole.

The judge declared the jury deadlocked late Friday after the jury reported it had “reached a stage where further deliberations will not change an opinion.”

Atlanta residents have watched the trial unfold as one setback after another slowed efforts to bring Nichols to justice and tested the patience of a city seeking closure.

Nichols was accused of plotting an escape from jail with his pen-pal girlfriend. Frustrated legislators used the growing expenses as a rallying cry to slash Georgia’s fledgling public defender system.