Nichols could leave mark on system
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Published:12/15/2008
Nichols could leave mark on system
By The Associated Press
ATLANTA - The trial against courthouse gunman Brian Nichols is over, but the costly legal efforts to bring one of Atlanta's most notorious criminals to justice will likely reverberate through Georgia's legal system for decades to come.
The mounting costs of the trial, likely the most expensive in Georgia history, have pinched budgets in a troubled economy. It has soured relations between Georgia legislators and the fledgling statewide public defender system. And it could lead to a sweeping round of changes to Georgia's death penalty rules.
Nichols, 37, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Saturday for the 2005 shooting spree that began when he escaped from custody at his rape trial and stole a deputy's gun. He then shot and killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, court reporter Julie Ann Brandau and sheriff's Deputy Hoyt Teasley. He murdered federal agent David Wilhelm at a north Atlanta home he was renovating.
Although Nichols confessed to the killings, the trial was beset by one complication after another that fast became a rallying cry for legislators seeking ways to reform the system.
Funding problems bogged down the case, which has likely exceeded $2 million to try, and frustrated prosecutors sued the presiding judge to try to jump-start the trial.
As the effort to bring the case to trial sputtered, House Speaker Glenn Richardson formed a panel to investigate whether to oust Judge Hilton Fuller, the senior judge who later recused himself from the case. Legislators soon passed a measure that banned senior judges from presiding over death penalty cases.
The trial problems came as Georgia's nascent public defender system, a new state-funded legal system for Georgia's poor, was struggling to forge its identity. Legislators soon grew louder in the criticism of the system, and in 2007 refused to fully fund it, saying at the time it was a response to the rising costs of the Nichols case.
"This case has been a poster child for why there needs to be reform in the system," said state Sen. Preston Smith, a Rome Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The public defender council still suffers from poor relations with legislators, and it is now locked in a tug-of-war with critics who say the lagging support from state policymakers makes it impossible for the system to live up to its promise. The system's director has scaled back its offerings, fired dozens of staffers and closed a 21-member office because of the cutbacks.
The case also seems likely to boost the chances for a proposal that would change Georgia's death penalty rules. The law now requires a unanimous sentence from a 12-person jury for death penalties, but legislators say there's new momentum behind a plan that would allow a judge to impose capital punishment even when a few jurors vote against it.
"There ought to be a safety valve here," said state Rep. Barry Fleming, who led two failed bids to change the death penalty rules. "A way to not make death penalty an automatic, but give the judge the option."
There's no doubt, too, that the case has forced government officials across the state to pay more attention to courthouse security.
"Has anything good come out of this?" asked Superior Court Judge James Bodiford, a CobbCounty jurist who took over the Nichols case after Fuller stepped down.
He then offered his own anecdote, explaining how security officials in his home county are now playing a bigger role in the construction of a new courthouse.
"We've learned a lot from this horrible tragedy," he said. "And as horrible as it was, we need to learn from this and make sure it never happens again."