Atlanta courthouse gunman avoids death sentence
A jury has failed to reach a unanimous decision on how to sentence a man who killed a judge and three other people in a shooting spree that started in a downtown Atlanta courthouse. Prosecutors had asked the jury to sentence Brian Nichols to death. Under Georgia law, the judge will now decide whether to sentence the 37-year-old to life in prison with parole eligibility or life in prison without parole. He has set a hearing Saturday to decide.
Associated Press Writer
Published: December 12, 2008
ATLANTA (AP) - A jury has failed to reach a unanimous decision on how to sentence a man who killed a judge and three other people in a shooting spree that started in a downtown Atlanta courthouse. Prosecutors had asked the jury to sentence Brian Nichols to death. Under Georgia law, the judge will now decide whether to sentence the 37-year-old to life in prison with parole eligibility or life in prison without parole. He has set a hearing Saturday to decide.
Nichols was convicted last month of murder and dozens of other counts in the 2005 killings. Nichols was on trial for rape when he grabbed a guard’s gun and fatally shot the judge, a court reporter and a deputy in the courthouse. He fled and killed a federal agent in Atlanta.
He eventually hid in the apartment of a woman was formerly from Columbia County. Nichols was apprehended the next day.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Wanna bet there were 3 ‘sympathetic’ ‘ladies’ on the jury???????
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