For a few tantalizing hours Saturday, it looked like jury pool selection in the Brian Nichols’ murder case would be complete, and a tired — and increasingly cranky — group of lawyers would get next week off.

Before the first juror was questioned Saturday morning, Superior Court Judge James Bodiford told prosecution and defense attorneys he would shrink the pool of jurors needed for the final jury selection of 12 and six alternates from 90 to 88 if five of six jurors on the Saturday interview schedule qualified.

Bodiford even altered the interview format to put the spurs to the process that has dragged on for 30 days with lawyers grilling some prospective jurors for more than an hour with repetitive questions.

None of that worked. Only two of six jurors questioned Saturday were qualified – bringing the total number of qualified jurors to 85, out of 232 who have been questioned – and testy attorneys snipped at each other at the end of the day.

Instead of a week, they will get three days off before jury pool selection resumes Thursday, and they again will be seeking 90 jurors for the pool.

The following Tuesday, Judge Bodiford will hear pre-trial motions, and the Tuesday after that – Sept. 2 – he will announce the date of final jury selection and begin hearing pre-trial motions.

On Monday, Sept. 22 — more than 3 1/2 years after Nichols is accused of murdering Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and three others on March 11, 2005 — his trial is scheduled to begin in courtroom 6B of Atlanta Municipal Court.

Highlights of the week:

Juror No. 227, a businessman, said if Nichols got death, instead of life, the court would be showing him mercy.

“I believe the death penalty is the easy way out,” the man said. “If he committed the acts … why don’t we put him away for life without parole?”

The potential juror didn’t have in mind a prison sentence where the convicted could lift weights, take classes or work. He favored a prison like the federal “Supermax,” where the prisoner spends 23 hours a day locked away by himself.

He also criticized the cost of seeking the death penalty when such a severe alternative is available. District Attorney Paul Howard has turned down Nichols’ offer to accept a life sentence if Howard drops his pursuit of the death penalty.

Juror No. 227 was excused from the jury pool.

Juror No. 205 knows a bit about crime. A robber once placed a gun at his head; his mother was murdered by her boyfriend; and he was arrested when he was 25 during a drug sweep – even though he didn’t have drugs on him – and spent a short spell in jail.

He was willing to risk prison after his mother was killed in Adair Park when he armed himself and was on the lookout for the boyfriend.

“I told my sister if I see him, I will kill him,” he said. “That was my intention.”

But fate intervened when an Atlanta police detective investigating his mother’s murder spotted the gun, inquired about it, and disarmed him.

Juror No. 205 joined the jury pool.

Juror No. 274 is a veteran of jury service, having served on both criminal and civil juries over the years. Verdicts, he noted, usually required a lot of discussion. “It takes a lot of patience,” he said.

But it also takes intact civil rights to sit on a jury, and Juror No. 274, a man in his 60s, had two felony convictions: one in the 1970s for theft, and one this year for a felon in possession of a firearm.

Convicted felons can have their civil rights restored. But Juror No. 274 wasn’t one of them, even though, as he told the court, he had never been in prison and always managed to vote, which is also against the law for convicted felons.

Bodiford’s staff checked and confirmed the man’s rights had not been restored. He advised the juror how to get his rights back, then booted him from the pool.

Juror No. 278 said he didn’t live in Atlanta when Nichols committed the shootings and only remembered the case vaguely from national news reports.

He thought it would be interesting, he said, to spend a few months on jury getting a bird’s-eye view of the case. And, as such, he has done his best to follow the court order and ignore news about the case.

“As soon as I heard the name, I block my ears, close my eyes and tell my wife to tell me when it is over,” said the Unitarian from Massachusetts.

Juror No. 278 also believed the death penalty is “morally reprehensible” and should be abolished. Still, he said, he could consider death if the prosecution made a convincing argument.

Prosecutors tried to get him booted from the jury pool, asking him if he thought he could realistically vote to sentence Nichols to death.

“I believe I was asked to just consider it,” said the man, parsing words as deftly as lawyers have for the past five weeks. “I would discuss it was it my fellow jurors and … I would have to be strongly persuaded.”

Juror No. 278 slipped into the pool.