Jury selected for Nichols trial

A majority female jury will decide whether Brian Nichols is a murderer and whether he should die for the crime.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge James Bodiford congratulated the glum-looking group of jurors at 2 p.m. Wednesday when he told them they would be hearing the case that is expected to last the rest of the year. They will start hearing testimony when they return for trial Monday.

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John Spink / jspink@ajc.com

Defendant Brian Nichols was in court Wednesday for the final day of jury selection. The trial starts next week.

PHOTOS
• A look at the case 2005-present
• Penalty phase | Verdict
• Weeks in court:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

• Interactive graphic: The 2005 shootings
• Video: Nichols' confession

MORE STORIES

• 4 years after attacks, courthouse lacks security plan 
• Gwinnett won't prosecute Nichols for kidnapping 
• Feds won't seek death penalty for Nichols 
• In prison, cellphone is coveted contraband 
• Police reveal little about Nichols manhunt errors 
• Nichols trial holdouts: 'Show me something' 

• Nichols says he was at war with U.S. government in taped confession
• AJC's full trial coverage

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• Atlanta news
• Georgia and metro news

Nichols is on trial for murder and other charges in the March 11, 2005, shooting deaths of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, his court stenographer, a sheriff’s deputy and a U.S. Customs Agent. Nichols allegedly murdered the victims after he broke free of custody at the courthouse, where he was on trial for rape.

The jury of 12 includes six black females, two white females, two black males, one white male, and one Asian male.

The ordeal of finding the jury took nine weeks and teams of prosecution and defense attorneys questioning more than 240 prospective jurors from Fulton County, as Superior Court Judge James Bodiford heard scores of motions and arguments from lawyers.

Now, those eight lawyers — four for the prosecution, four for the defense — will face a panel they sought to shape in their favor.

The defense sought jurors opposed to the death penalty and open to Nichols’ innocent-by-reason-of insanity defense. The prosecution sought jurors who would toss out the insanity arguments, find Nichols guilty of murder, and sentence him to death — instead of life in prison.

After the attorneys picked the 12 and six alternates on Wednesday, Bodiford asked in a cheerful voice: “Y’all happy with your jury?” If they weren’t, neither team wanted to signal otherwise.

“Absolutely,” said lead defense attorney Henderson Hill, who then looked over at lead prosecutor Kellie Hill, who smiled and nodded.

“Good,” said Bodiford, dryly. “Another thing you agree upon.”

Most of the jurors selected have said they didn’t want to serve. Here are thumbnails of most of the 12 who will hear the case, expected to last until Christmas, based on their testimony during jury selection.

JUROR NO. 5: Black male who studied at a technical college, works in construction and lives in northeast Atlanta. He said he began thinking about the death penalty at age 8 after his older brother was murdered. A friend’s son was also killed in a robbery and he has friends who are with the Atlanta Police Department. He favors capital punishment and wishes his brother’s killer had to pay with his life.

JUROR NO. 33: Black female who retired from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and now works as a contract employee for the agency. She knows Clint Rucker, one of the prosecutors, although he is not a close friend. The woman said she wasn’t opposed to capital punishment. “Could you vote for death for that man sitting there?” asked prosecutor Kellie Hill while she pointed at Nichols.

The woman paused, then answered with a barely audible quote: “Yes.”

JUROR NO. 41: Black female who lost her job in July when her company cut 165 people. She believes temporary insanity is possible but thinks it has been misused in the justice system. “At my age, I’m less likely to find people not guilty for reasons of insanity,” she said. She complained that the legal system has let the Nichols case stretch out forever. “To be honest, I’m kind of tired of hearing about it,” she said.

JUROR NO. 138: A black female, a mother and sales representative for Merck. She lived in California at the time of the courthouse shootings, and moved to Alpharetta in 2006. Her brother was once robbed. She said she is biased against Nichols but believed she could set that aside to sit on the jury. Prosecutor Clint Rucker asked if she considered herself an open-minded person? “Yes,” she said. “Don’t we all?”

JUROR NO. 132: Black female from Alabama. Her father was in the U.S. Army. She is a graduate of Georgia State University and works in management with AT&T. An active volunteer, she is also director of Adopt a Student, a mentoring program for students. She said the justice system is biased against blacks. Regarding Nichols, she said: “I don’t believe there’s a question whether he did it. I believe he did it.”

JUROR NO. 181: Black female who lives in Union City. She said she feared being in the same courtroom with Nichols: “Yesterday it was really hard, because I was arguing in my head where are the exits, and the police guards with the guns at their sides.” She said she wouldn’t want to be the deciding vote on whether to execute Nichols. “I wouldn’t want be the one who says, ‘Yes, kill him.’”

JUROR NO. 98: Black female who works as an evening shift supervisor at a company that distributes nuts, bolts and screws. She does the books for her church and she owns a .380-caliber pistol but has never fired it. In her jury questionnaire, she said she strongly opposed the death penalty. “So many people are wrongly sentenced and the death penalty will cause them death for something they didn’t do.”

JUROR NO. 115: South Asian male, who recently became an U.S. citizen. He has a master’s degree and works for Equifax, the company that employs the woman who accused Nichols of rape. He told attorneys he opposed the death penalty because it is ineffective. “Unless I’m given a good enough reason, I do not see how I can convince myself [to vote for death]. … I would impose death if I felt he was a danger to other people.”

JUROR NO. 157: White male who went to restaurant school in Philadelphia. He has family members who are lawyers and judges in other states. He now works with fish at an aquarium.

JUROR NO. 210: White female, high school graduate who formerly managed an Applebee’s restaurant and now works for a boxing company. She said she had knew little about the Nichols case and didn’t follow the news accounts during the manhunt for Nichols after the Fulton Courthouse shootings. “It was March and I’m Irish and we also have a lot of festivities about that time,” she explained. “I don’t watch TV news a lot and I don’t read the paper. I was too busy to pay attention.”

— Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this story.