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 said the county has to move the trial within 10 days. He did not specify where in the county the trial should be moved, but he noted that neither the defense nor the prosecution objected to the Atlanta Municipal Court.

Bodiford wants the trial moved from the Fulton County Courthouse because Nichols is accused of gunning down a judge and another person in the same building and a third person just outside. Bodiford believes holding the trial there might prejudice the jury and provide grounds for an appeal.

Nichols has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bodiford issued his order a short time after County Manager Zachary Williams recommended not moving the trial to Atlanta Municipal Court because of costs.

Williams said a proposed agreement between the city and the county would require the county to forgive a $376,000 city debt. In a Thursday memo to the County Commission, 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.

Williams said that would cost the county an extra $1.8 million if the trial lasted a year, which is the length of the proposed lease. Bodiford contends the trial will be over before the end of this year.

Williams 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 ask 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 got under way, with one man qualified as a potential juror after he was questioned for about 75 minutes.

Bodiford, a Cobb County Superior Court judge, was appointed to the case in February. The previous judge, Hilton Fuller, removed himself because he was quoted in a national magazine as saying that "Everyone in the world knows [Nichols] did it." All Fulton County judges have recused themselves.

Nichols is charged with 54 crimes related to the March 11, 2005, killings of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, Fulton County deputy sheriff Sgt. Hoyt Teasley and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm after Nichols escaped from custody at the Fulton County Courthouse downtown —- where he was on trial for rape. He was captured a day later.

The trial has been delayed several times over funding issues for the defense.

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."

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 identified only 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 whether any had formed or expressed an opinion about Nichols' guilt or innocence.

Unlike in the morning, five prospective jurors were quickly interviewed and just as quickly excused Thursday afternoon. A sixth has to return this morning.

Prosecutors spent no more than 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, 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 summonses for the 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.' "

Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this article.