Nichols gets life without parole

Brian Nichols was saved from a death sentence by three jurors who were determined that he instead spend his life in prison, no matter how many people he killed.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard suggested Saturday that the possibility of a death penalty was doomed — even before jury selection — by the three holdouts.

“I talked to two jurors and they both say that some people showed up for jury duty with their minds already made up and never entered into a meaningful discussion of a death sentence,” Howard said Saturday after Nichols was sentenced.

“That means we didn’t get a fair trial.”

The two jurors, who indicated they were among the nine voting to put Nichols to death, reported one of the holdouts even worked a crossword puzzle while the panel deliberated Nichols’ fate for 40 hours over four days.

The frustrated prosecutor gambled on getting a death penalty decision when he denied a Nichols offer a year ago to plead guilty in exchange for a life prison sentence. He said Saturday that he would urge Georgia lawmakers to amend the law — that now requires a unanimous decision — to allow a 10-juror majority approve a death penalty.

“We’re not asking for favors — we are just asking for a level playing field,” Howard said. “People who will not deliberate should not be permitted to continue to serve on juries.”

He was especially vexed because the holdouts were evidently not truthful when questioned by lawyers about whether they could impose the death penalty before they were chosen for the jury.

He said all the jurors swore under oath that they could consider death for Nichols if they felt the crimes deserved it.

Inside the jury room, however, the three holdouts told the other nine jurors that they would not impose death for any killings.

In fact, Howard said, the nine pro-death jurors asked the three holdouts how many people would Nichols have to kill before they would be willing to vote for execution.

“They asked, ‘How about if it had been 50 people?’ ” Howard said. “And the three people said it wouldn’t make any difference at all.”

The two female jurors, one white and one black, spoke publicly at a news conference Saturday to express their exasperation

“I want the families to know we did everything we could do,” said the white woman, who was identified as Juror No. 12.

Family members of the four murder victims expressed outrage that Nichols had escaped the death penalty. “I feel in some ways he is proud of what he did,” said Deborah Teasley, widow of a sheriff’s deputy Nichols murdered. “He was constantly sitting there at the defense table with a smirk on his face.”

The two jurors, who did not give their names, said the closed-door jury deliberations never became hostile during the four days they tried to decide a penalty.

“Everyone was respectful,” said Juror No. 8, one of six African-American women on the panel. “We were able to state our opinions. But we would not back down.”

It was the pro-death majority, hoping to sway the three holdouts, who sought the replay of the bombshell jailhouse tape recording of Nichols talking with his brother on a telephone call.

“We were searching,” Juror No. 12 said.

An angry Nichols was recorded saying he didn’t regret the four murders and would have taken his rampage to the DA’s office in the courthouse if given the chance again.

Defense attorneys vehemently objected to the tape as “highly prejudicial,” though Judge James Bodiford said jurors could rehear just the portion played for them at trial. In the end, the jury did not follow through with a formal written request for the tape.

The two jurors kept their public comments limited at the news conference. Other jurors contacted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, including the jury foreman, declined to talk or answer questions left for them at their residences.

The jury — six black women, two white women, two black men, one white man and one Asian man — began hearing the case Sept. 22 and convicted Nichols on Nov. 7 after 12 hours of deliberation.

The trial then entered a four-week penalty phase, with prosecution witnesses testifying that Nichols is still a remorseless killer plotting constantly to escape, and defense witnesses testifying he had a troubled childhood and has shown signs of remorse and redemption.

Howard said the jurors in the majority told him after reporting their 9-3 deadlock to Bodiford that they did not know they could have asked Bodiford to replace with alternates the three who refused to deliberate with them.

On Friday morning, a day after the 9-3 deadlock was first reported, prosecutor Kellie Hill asked Bodiford to ask the jury if all of the jurors were participating in good faith.

Defense lawyers objected, arguing to Bodiford that any such inquiry during the penalty phase would amount to coercion — which could result in a reversal on appeal.

Josh Moore, one of the defense lawyers, had reminded the judge earlier that unanimity in the penalty phase was not required.

“Georgia law shows no preference for a unanimous verdict in the sentencing phase of a death case,” he said.

Howard said state law is murky on whether a judge could inquire or replace jurors during the penalty phase.

The law also permits each juror to follow his or her personal morality on determining whether to impose a death sentence, as long as the juror can honestly consider it.

Howard said he hoped the Legislature also would change the law, which permits vague responses during jury selection on whether potential jurors would be willing to impose the death penalty.

Victims’ relatives said any Nichols victory was hollow.

“I don’t think Brian Nichols won,” said Christina Greenway, daughter of the court reporter Nichols murdered. “In his own words, it is not in his DNA to stay in prison. Now he can look forward to a life in prison.”

Nichols rose to infamy when he escaped from custody at the Fulton County Courthouse during his rape trial on March 11, 2005, by overpowering his guard, sheriff’s Deputy Cynthia Hall, beating her so badly he left her brain-damaged and blind in one eye.

Nichols then took her gun and went to the chambers of Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, who was presiding over his trial, and took the staff captive and seized the gun of another deputy. Minutes later, he shot Barnes in the back of the head while he was on the bench hearing a civil matter. Four seconds later, he shot the court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, in the head, killing her, also.

Nichols then escaped and shot and killed Deputy Sgt. Hoyt Teasley, who had pursued him outside the courthouse.

Nichols committed a series of carjackings before finally escaping downtown Atlanta by taking MARTA to Buckhead while police looked for him.

In Buckhead, while in search of a hiding place, he committed other assaults before ending up that night at the house that David Wilhelm was building a few blocks from Lenox Mall.

He shot Wilhelm, an off-duty U.S. Customs agent, emptied his pockets of cash and took his cellphone as he lay paralyzed, dying on the floor. Nichols stole Wilhelm’s pickup truck, where he said he found Wilhelm’s badge. Whether he knew Wilhelm was a federal agent before he killed him could make a difference on whether federal authorities indict him and seek a death penalty in a federal court. At trial, prosecutors contended Nichols ambushed Wilhelm and that he didn’t have his gun drawn during the confrontation as Nichols claimed.

Defense lawyers contended that Nichols committed the crimes because he suffered from a delusion that made him believe he was leading a slave revolt against an unjust justice system.

Nichols, 37, was an $80,000-a-year computer system expert at UPS before his life spiraled out of control after his girlfriend of seven years dumped him for infidelity. He took her captive and raped her in August 2004 — saying he wanted to win her back — and was arrested and spent nine months in jail before the killings.

Wilhelm’s widow, Candee, took aim at Nichols’ parents — who had won praise from the judge as solid citizens — when she addressed the public after the sentencing.

“Brian Nichols’ parents raised an extremely evil person,” said Wilhelm, who was briefly detained during the trial for bringing a pistol into the courthouse. “I am extremely disappointed that the defendant has been shown the mercy that he did not show on March 11, 2005.”

Lead prosecutor Kellie Hill reminded the crowd that mercy did not equal injustice.

“Justice has been served in this case — it absolutely has been,” Hill said. “Sometimes we don’t understand the outcome, but we all have to accept it.”

Nichols’ mother, Claritha, and father, Gene, attended the trial most days for 12 weeks.

They became the focus of testimony about their son’s upbringing, and his mother testified about events leading up to his rape trial on the day he escaped and went on his killing spree.

They sat through the sentencing Saturday but left the courthouse before reporters could interview them.

As she came into the courthouse before the sentencing, Nichols’ mother expressed their sentiments.

“We just want to fade into obscurity,” she said.