Superior Court Judge James Bodiford may decide today whether his profession of friendship for a victim might disqualify him from presiding over a murder trial.

Defense lawyers plan to ask him at a hearing this morning to recuse himself from the death penalty case of Brian Nichols, who is accused of killing four people in March 2005, because Bodiford made sympathetic comments about one of the victims, Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes.

"If you have a judge quoted as saying he was personal friends with the victim, that is a legitimate reason to ask the judge to step aside," said Tom West, a defense lawyer unaffiliated with the case. "We're talking about the death penalty."

Bodiford, who normally presides in Cobb County, was appointed this year to oversee the Nichols case after another judge recused himself after being quoted by New Yorker magazine as saying everybody knew Nichols pulled the trigger.

Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights that opposes the death penalty, said Bodiford's quotes in a 2005 Marietta Daily Journal article "certainly would raise a very substantial question about his impartiality."

Bright noted that the standard of the legal canons of ethics was not whether Bodiford would actually be biased against the defense but whether an objective person would question his impartiality.

But the question about whether Bodiford needs to step aside may not be that clear cut. In a 1993 Georgia Supreme Court ruling involving a Cobb County death penalty case, the high court said the trial judge's casual relationship with the crime victim and her husband, a Cobb County attorney, did not require the removal of the trial judge from the case.

Ron Carlson, a criminal law professor at the University of Georgia, noted that Bodiford was the chief judge of the Cobb County bench when he made the comments and it could be construed that he was expressing the sympathy of the bench, which also released a written statement of condolence.

Carlson said it may be impractical to find a judge in Georgia who didn't at least know Barnes and have a good opinion of him.

"Under the circumstances of this very unusual murder it is realistic to accept the fact that competent and good judges will have known and have a good opinion of Judge Barnes," Carlson said. "What does the defense want? To find someone who was antagonistic to Judge Barnes?

"If he asserts, 'I hold no malice to Brian Nichols,' then unless there is some smoking gun to the contrary, that is probably going to carry the day."

Bruce Harvey, another defense lawyer, cautioned that in a case as high profile as the Nichols' trial, Bodiford would be well-advised to take a conservative stance and either recuse himself or ask that another judge determine whether he should step down.

"Why not take a conservative stance and do whatever you can to ensure the integrity of the process?" Harvey said. "The test is whether there is an appearance of impropriety. And whether his comments would lead to suspicion of the judicial system itself."