Jury pool selection in the Brian Nichols murder trial, which entered its 19th day Friday, should conclude in about three weeks, Superior Court Judge James Bodiford said Friday.

That would set the stage for an early September trial in a case that is more than three years old.

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Nichols is accused of the March 11, 2005 murders of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and three others. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bodiford indicated he arrived at his prediction that jury pool selection will be done by Aug. 23 after prosecution and defense attorneys agreed to change the guidelines of selecting the final jury.

The previous judge in the case, Hilton Fuller, had given the defense and prosecution each 30 "peremptory strikes" during the final selection of the panel of 12 jurors and six alternates. A peremptory strike means the potential juror can be excused without reason.

Under the new agreement, each side gets only 25 peremptory strikes. Because of that, only 90 potential jurors will be needed before attorneys make their final cuts, down from 100 before the change, Bodiford said.

"Giving up the 10 strikes gives us three-plus days," Bodiford said, meaning it will shorten the time needed to pick the pool. He said he had reached an agreement to also give attorneys – who have been working six-day weeks – three days off. On Aug. 18, 19, and 20, there will be no court or jury selection.

"I am not going into the reasons, because it's nobody's business," Bodiford said of the decision to cut the number of peremptory strikes. "But it was in agreement" between all parties, he said.

He said that on Monday, he will meet with attorneys from both sides and try to arrive at a date when the trial phase of the case will start. He said he expected the trial to conclude by year's end.

Bodiford said last week that the longest trial he had been involved with in his 24-year career as a judge was 59 days, but that he expected the Nichols case to take longer. That would mean a trial of at least 10 weeks on the current six-day-a-week, Monday-through-Saturday schedule.

Defense attorneys have filed a plea in the case complaining about the hardship of the trial schedule. Bodiford said Thursday that plea has not been dismissed, but it had been "taken off the table."

Bodiford, who took over the case last winter, has worked to get it on a steady track.

Jury selection started last year, then was interrupted for about 18 months amid defense funding snarls and other issues. Last February, Bodiford was assigned to the case after Fuller stepped down.

On Friday, 10 prospective jurors were interviewed and two were qualified, bringing to 137 the total number of jurors interviewed and to 51 the number that have qualified. There is no jury selection Saturday. It resumes Monday.