Nichols jurors to reconvene today

Jurors in the Brian Nichols murder trial went home without a verdict Thursday afternoon after their first full day of deliberations in a trial that has lasted 32 days. They are considering four killings that Nichols confessed to committing on March 11, 2005 —- more than 3 1/2 years ago.

Attorneys wrapped up the case Wednesday with closing arguments. The 12-person jury —- six black females, two white females, two black males, one white male and one Asian male —- listened to more than 90 witnesses and saw more than 900 pieces of evidence introduced in the more than six weeks of trial.

Jurors were delivered that evidence in a jury room at Atlanta Municipal Court where the case was tried. It was moved from the Fulton County Courthouse during jury selection this summer because the courthouse was the crime scene.

Nichols escaped from a holding cell in the Fulton County Courthouse where he was being held while facing trial for rape. He shot and killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, in Barnes’ courtroom, where Nichols was to stand trial later that morning.

He shot and killed Fulton County sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley on the street outside the courthouse and, while on the run, shot and killed U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm at Wilhelm’s Buckhead home.

Jurors will return to begin deliberations at 8:40 this morning. If they do not reach a verdict today, they will return Monday.

The panel is trying to decide whether Nichols is insane, mentally ill or simply a cold-blooded murderer.

The 36-year-old Nichols, through his lawyers, claims a delusion that he was leading a “slave revolt” against an unjust system that made him believe his actions were just and “overmastered” his will to stop.

Prosecutors argue Nichols is a vicious killer who made up stories of his delusions to try to avoid a possible death penalty.

The jurors can find Nichols guilty of murder, not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty but mentally ill —- an unusual verdict that would require the prison system to evaluate Nichols for treatment.

Either of the guilty verdicts would require the jury to then decide whether Nichols should be executed for one of the most notorious multiple murders in metro Atlanta history or be sentenced to life in prison.

Nichols, once an $80,000-a-year UNIX System administrator for UPS, did not testify. The jury heard jailhouse recordings of phone conversations between Nichols and his parents in which he mocked the idea that he suffered from a delusional compulsion and plotted a public-relations campaign using hip-hop artists to burnish his image.

His lawyers and a psychologist say those conversations are evidence of the ongoing delusion.

Nichols had a largely clean criminal history before being charged in a bizarre rape of his former girlfriend in August 2004. It was while in custody and on trial for that charge that he escaped and shot dead his trial judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and an off-duty federal agent while on the loose.

“This is a case where a man’s own thoughts betray him … that compel a decent man to take uncontrollable actions,” defense lawyer Josh Moore told jurors in closing arguments Wednesday. “It robbed him of his ability to distinguish right from wrong.”