Brian Nichols Found Guilty

[Lord MJ]

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Updated: 3:15 p.m. November 07, 2008
BRIAN NICHOLS TRIAL
Nichols found guilty in courthouse shootings
Jury still must decide if gunman is to be executed

By RHONDA COOK, STEVE VISSER, JEFFRY SCOTT ,

Friday, November 07, 2008

A Fulton County jury found courthouse shooter Brian Nichols guilty of the March 11, 2005 murder of four people in a killing spree that rocked the nation and the judicial system of Georgia, and took more than three and a half years to wind through the courts.

Nichols sat impassively as the judge read guilty verdicts to all counts in the 54-count indictment.

The jury issued straight guilty verdicts in all counts. It could have found Nichols “guilty but mentally ill,” a rare verdict designed to tell the prison system that the jury believed the defendant was mentally ill.

The jury of six black females, two white females, two black males, one white male and one Asian male found Nichols guilty after two days of deliberation and a trial that lasted 32 days, had more than 90 witnesses and more than 900 pieces of evidence.

Superior Court Judge James Bodiford sent the jury home until 8:40 a.m. Monday when the jury is scheduled to return to start deliberating whether to sentence Nichols to death or to life imprisonment.

Before the jury gave the verdict, Bodiford warned the courtroom audience, which consisted largely of family members of the victims and Nichols, that anyone who had an outburst at the reading of the verdict would be sentenced to 20 days in the Fulton County jail for contempt of court.

Nichols pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His case has transfixed the city, cost millions of dollars, and taken two judges to complete. Judge Hilton Fuller resigned in January and was replaced by Bodiford , who normally presides in Cobb County.

Bodiford moved the trail from the Fulton County Courthouse because the courthouse was the crime scene, where Nichols, while awaiting trial for rape, escaped a holding cell and, and went on his rampage.

He killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and court reporter Julie Ann Brandau in Barnes’s courtroom, deputy Hoyt Teasley on the street outside, and later that night in Buckhead, U.S. Custom’s agent David Wilhelm.

The prosecution argued that Nichols was angry and seeking revenge on the judge. The defense argued that Nichols, 36, a former UNIX systems administrator who earned $80,000 a year, was suffering from a delusional compulsion, did not know right from wrong, and could not stop himself from being driven by the delusion.

In his mind, his attorneys argued, a defense psychologist testified, and he himself claimed in a three-hour taped confession the day he was caught, that was played for jurors, Nichols considered himself launching a slave revolt against Fulton County, the state of Georgia, and the U.S. government.

He said he considered Barnes his “slave master,” and all the people he killed enemy “combatants.”

Judge Barnes’ widow was in the courtroom every day of the trial, taking notes. The families of Brandau, Teasley, and Wilhelm, also watched daily as often gripping evidence was introduced, including an audio recording of the shootings of Barnes and Brandau and the chilling screams of female staff attorney. Nichols displayed few emotions throughout, but his family at times appeared overwrought.

When the gunshots were played during the prosecution’s opening argument, his father Gene Nichols, left the courtroom. At times during her testimony Nichols’ mother, Claritha Nichols, dabbed tears from her eyes.

Defense attorneys brought witness forward to testify how Nichol’s state of mind began deteriorating after a long-time girlfriend broke up with him and he was charged with raping her in August 2004.

Conditions in the Fulton County jail were so bad, they made his mental state even worse, a psychologist testified, to the point that, by the time he went on his spree, he was convinced he was a victim of a racist and unjust system.

The prosecution countered there wasn’t anything wrong with his mind. He was just angry and seeking revenge because he feared spending the rest of his life in prison for rape. And he was conniving liar who would do or say anything to get free.

The jury heard letters read between Nichols and a Connecticut in which he laid out a scheme to escape from the Fulton County jail on Thanksgiving Day in 2006, and boasted how brilliant his scheme was to catch guards sluggish after a big holiday meal.

He boasted that his trial would be in Fulton County where many were angry at the judicial system and if his lawyers picked the right jury he would be found not guilty. “My goal is a not guilty verdict,” he wrote. “All I need is the right people on the jury and I go home.”

In his closing argument Wednesday, prosecuting attorney Clint Rucker told the jury: “This defendant is a liar. He’s not mentally ill. He’s not delusional. He knows the difference between right and wrong. But he lies, he lies over and over and over again.”

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