Superior Court Judge James Bodiford ordered Fulton County to move the Brian Nichols murder trial out of the county courthouse Thursday afternoon, just hours after jury selection began in the oft-delayed trial.

Bodiford's order came shortly after County Manager Zachary Williams recommended not moving the trial to Atlanta Municipal Court because of costs.

JOHN SPINK / jspink@ajc.com

Brian Nichols with attorney Penelope Marshall in court Thursday morning.

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In a memo to the board of commissioners dated Thursday, Williams said a proposed agreement between the city and the county would require the county to forgive a $376,000 city debt to Fulton. He said moving the trial would cost $151,345 a month in overtime and security costs indicated in the security plan for the municipal court.

Bodiford said the county has to move the trial within 10 days. He did not specify where the trial should be moved, but noted that neither the defense nor the prosecution objected to the municipal court.

William said the judge's order obviously canceled out the option of not moving the trial but he still had concerns about the security costs. He said he would be asking the sheriff's office to revise its plan.

"It is more expensive than I was hoping for," Williams said. "We're going to work on it."

Earlier Thursday, jury selection in got under way, with one man qualified as a potential juror after he was questioned for about 75 minutes.

Bodiford, who has labored to get the trial back on track, said he was impressed by the thoroughness of the questioning but not its duration.

He told lawyers to avoid questions already handled in an extensive questionnaire sent to potential jurors 18 months ago.

"I'm going to ask you to focus like a laser beam," Bodiford said. "I know you can do it shorter than that."

Nichols is charged with 54 crimes related to the March 11, 2005 slayings of a judge, court reporter and deputy sheriff during an escape at the Fulton County courthouse downtown — where he was on trial for rape at the time — and of a federal agent before he was captured a day later.

He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Jury selection can be a drawn out process in which lawyers and the judge first decide whether individuals are "qualified" — meaning that lawyers' objections or a hardship won't eliminate them from the jury pool.

Once they get a qualified jury pool, the defense and prosecution will each reject 30 members to leave a 12-member jury with six replacements to judge Nichols' guilt or innocence on murder and other charges. The case is expected to last several months.

To ensure their privacy, the jurors are only identified by number.

Juror No. 1 testified that he believed in the death penalty in part because when he was 8 his older brother was murdered. A few years ago, he said, a friend's son also was murdered by a robber. He said the tragedies wouldn't prevent him from fairly assessing Nichols' defense.

Henderson Hill, the lead defense attorney, told the potential jurors that the Nichols case isn't a whodunit. Nichols admits to the killings but contends his will to resist committing the crimes was overpowered by delusion.

"This isn't a case about who did it," Hill said when asking whether Juror No. 1 could fairly assess Nichols' mental state three years ago.

Earlier Thursday, 11 of 16 people in the first batch of potential jurors had raised their hands when Bodiford asked if any had formed or expressed an opinion about Nichols' guilt or innocence.

Unlike in the morning, three prospective jurors were quickly inteviewed and just as quickly excused Thursday afternoon.

Prosecutors spent no more than 20 to 25 minutes questioning the three. The defense attorneys asked no questions before asking the judge to excuse them "for cause."

All three expressed strong opinions that Nichols was guilty. One of them, juror No. 52, said the Nichols case had been the subject of his unsuccessful campaign for the Fulton County Commission.

An estimated 1,000 Fulton residents responded to jury summons for the high-profile case more than a year ago and have been on call.

Bodiford plans to call panels of about 20 jurors a day until the court qualifies enough people. Bodiford told potential jurors Thursday that he isn't likely to excuse for hardship reasons — except ones required by law, such as not being able to communicate in English. None of the potential jurors claimed that problem.

"I'm not a volunteer just as you are not a volunteer," Bodiford said. "Later I was asked, 'Why did you accept [the appointment to the case]. And I said, 'Because it was the right thing to do.' "

Nichols' trial initially started last fall but quickly bogged down in controversies over defense funding. Bodiford took over the case after the first judge stepped down for injudicious comments to a magazine.