Brian Nichols prosecutors argue for death, the defense, mercy

The faces came through the door like they were leaving a funeral. They were worn, tired, and emotionally drained, the eyes red and seemingly focused on nothing except the fixed point of a terrible memory they were reminded of — one more time and in the most graphic way.

Holly Ditmar, the daughter of Judge Rowland Barnes, caught the gaze of a familiar person in the hallway outside the courtroom Monday where prosecutor Clint Rucker had just finished his three-and-a-half hour-long closing argument in the Brian Nichols’ murder trial, pleading with the jury to sentence Nichols to death.

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JOHN SPINK / jspink@ajc.com

Brian Nichols (second from right) listens as prosecutors make their case for the death penalty Monday.

JOHN SPINK / jspink@ajc.com

Prosecuting attorney Clint Rucker.

JOHN SPINK / jspink@ajc.com

Lead defense attorney Henderson Hill.

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• A look at the case 2005-present
• Penalty phase | Verdict
• Weeks in court:
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• Interactive graphic: The 2005 shootings
• Video: Nichols' confession

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She had just watched a powerful, emotional, slide-show montage that featured her father lying in a pool of dripping blood with a gaping hole in his head. It then showed a similar picture of his court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau.

Ditmar said one word: “Jeez.” Then she moved past.

The trial that has lasted for 12 weeks, exhausted a jury that has listened to more than 140 witnesses and seen more than one thousand piece of evidence — in a case that has dragged on for more than three and a half years, drained a city of money, patience, and tested its tolerance for justice at any cost — reached its penultimate moment Monday.

The prosecution tried to slam the door shut on the death chamber, with Nichols in it. The defense tried to open the eyes of the jury to give mercy to a man who killed four people in a March 11, 2005 murder spree: Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes; court reporter Julie Ann Brandau; sheriff’s deputy Hoyt Teasley, and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm.

All that is left is the verdict for punishment. The jury begins deliberating that Tuesday morning. Jurors will take with them the defense’s closing argument for mercy, which lead defense attorney Henderson Hill argued late Monday afternoon.

The defense lawyer from Charlotte argued for jurors to examine Nichols’ entire life — a childhood of sexual abuse and bullying, a propensity to stand up for the weak and for justice — when making their decision.

“There is a consistent picture and that picture is not the person who walked into the chambers of Judge Barnes,” Hill said. “He stands up for the weak.”

Hill leaned heavily on the testimony of Ashley Smith Robinson. Nichols kidnapped and held her captive in her Duluth apartment after committing the killings and she became the “unlikely angel” who won his confidence and affection and turned him in.

Hill played the 911 call that Robinson made immediately after she left Nichols in her apartment, when he let her leave to visit her daughter.

“He is very remorseful for what he did to those people,” Robinson told the operator. “He is watching the TV saying, ‘I can’t believe this is me, I can’t believe this is me.”’

Robinson’s voice dropped and she sniffled. “I know something bad is going to happen to him and that is unfortunate. He didn’t kill me.”

Rucker didn’t mention Robinson. Instead, he repeated as he has the entire trial a recitation about Nichols that felt Monday more like an incantation: “He is conniving. He is cold-blooded. He is vicious. He is remorseless. And he is extremely, extremely dangerous.”

Dressed in a black suit, black tie, and crisp white shirt, prosecutor Rucker looked the part of pallbearer as he sought to convey Nichols to the grave, with the help of the state and lethal injection.

Nichols, he told the jury, deserves to die for at least two reasons: the murder of four people, and his threat to public safety if he is imprisoned and not killed.

All that stands between society and this man, said Rucker, were the 12 members of the jury who, for the last two weeks have heard defense witnesses ask for mercy. He reminded jurors Nichols had said he would kill again to gain his freedom.

They must vote unanimously to sentence Nichols to death chamber or to prison for life without parole; anything less than a 12-0 vote is automatically life in prison, with the possibility of parole.

“If you give this defendant life and not death, after all he has done, he will have nothing to lose and everything to gain because the evidence has proved to you all that he is not finished,” Rucker said. “He will do it again, and he will do it again, and again, and again, until somebody stops him, until someone puts an end to it, and that someone is you.”