Atlanta courthouse rampage trial begins
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Brian Nichols, an escapee who killed 4 before taking a woman hostage in her home. The 2005 case has been plagued with delays and high costs.
ATLANTA — "It was a normal day of judicial proceedings," prosecutor Kellie Hill told the jury Monday. "A regular day of courtroom tranquillity -- until that man walked in a back door."
She pointed across the courtroom to the sullen, powerfully built man in a tan suit accused of killing four people in a 2005 rampage that started at a courthouse just a few blocks from here.
She then played an audiotape from the morning in March when he entered a courtroom with a gun shortly after having escaped from a sheriff's deputy. The tape began with the sound of a lawyer arguing her case. There were two thunderous booms, then a wail that sounded like an air-raid siren.
The horror and pandemonium that engulfed Atlanta in 2005 was now flooding a courtroom in 2008. The victims' relatives erupted in tears. There was an objection, and two packs of lawyers rushed the bench.
Brian Nichols' trial had finally begun, after 3½ years of delays and controversies.
Nichols, a computer engineer, made national news on March 11, 2005, when he gunned down a judge, a deputy and a court reporter in downtown Atlanta's Fulton County Courthouse.
The gunman's subsequent escape triggered the largest manhunt in Georgia history. During the next 26 hours, the gunman killed a federal agent and attempted to steal several cars.
The ordeal ended when a woman he kidnapped -- who placated him by reading him Christian self-help books -- escaped and called 911.
The courtroom was packed with victims' survivors, as well as Nichols' parents. Nichols has pleaded not guilty to all charges by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The opening statements unfolded under heavy security. In 2005, Nichols, a former football player, had been awaiting trial in a rape case when he punched a 51-year-old female deputy in the face then fled with her gun.
On Monday, a male sheriff's deputy who matched Nichols' brawn stood facing the defendant about 6 feet away. Nichols sat flanked by his team of court-appointed lawyers, occasionally scribbling on a piece of paper.
The criminal trial, with its 54-count indictment including four murder charges, has become the most complex and expensive in Georgia history. Its cost -- currently in the millions of dollars -- has threatened to cripple the state's indigent defense system. It has also sparked a fierce debate over how much should be spent on a man whose lawyers admit he is a killer.
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