Justice on Hold in Quadruple Murder Trial

Jan. 7, 2008— -- The case stunned the nation: A man on trial for rape at the Fulton County Courthouse overpowered a sheriff's deputy, took her gun and allegedly went on a killing rampage.

He allegedly shot the trial judge, the court reporter, a second deputy and, later that night, a federal agent. Then, in a made-for-TV-movie twist, he surrendered after allegedly holding a young woman hostage for several hours in her suburban Atlanta apartment.

It seemed an open-and-shut case. The suspect, Brian Nichols, was seen by witnesses throughout the ordeal, and his image was captured on security cameras at a nearby parking lot. The city watched his surrender live on TV.

Yet, nearly three years after the March 11, 2005, shootings, Nichols has not been tried. He faces the death penalty if convicted of capital murder, and that aspect has caused his trial to be delayed five times. The state says that after spending $1.5 million on the indigent Nichols' defense, there is no money left to defend him from a fund for indigents provided by the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council.

As a result, Nichols is now at the center of a looming fight between Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller, who is overseeing his murder trial, and the Georgia Legislature over the handling of Nichols' indigent defense money. Last week, the judge declined to turn over expense records to a legislative panel formed to investigate his handling of the case. It's a battle that could lead to a state constitutional crisis.

On Friday came the latest development in the Nichols saga. The Associated Press, citing law enforcement documents it obtained, reported that Nichols is suspected of plotting another sensational escape, this one with the help of his pen-pal girlfriend, a paralegal who once worked on his defense team, and two sheriff's deputies.

The delays in the Nichols case baffle those who have heard witnesses describe the killings, who have seen videotape of the suspect fleeing or who saw him captured.

"Clearly, the most difficult part of this case for the Georgia public right now is the slowness, what they see as the inefficiency in getting Nichols tried," says Ron Carlson, a University of Georgia law professor. "There is tremendous impatience (from) the public and the Legislature in seeing this case go forward."

The stranger-than-fiction case puzzles even a purveyor of fiction. "I've got the same question as a lot of other people," says Georgia native and novelist Terry Kay, who has followed the Nichols case and is the author of such works as To Dance With the White Dog, The Valley of Light and last year's The Book of Marie. "We are spending a lot of money, and we seem to be dawdling on this thing a lot. I don't know why they need to (keep delaying the trial). Most people I know say the same thing. But the justice system has always had a tremendous amount of injustice in it."

Nichols, 36, was captured March 12, 2005, after one of the largest manhunts in state history. He was arrested at an apartment complex where he allegedly forced his way into the residence of Ashley Smith. She said Nichols held her hostage overnight before she persuaded him to surrender.

In the latest twist, Nichols "used his considerable charm" to draw his girlfriend into a plot to cut his way through the cinderblock walls of the Fulton County Jail, flee in a waiting van and join the girlfriend, the AP reported, citing law enforcement documents.

Some of the alleged players in Nichols' escape plot were bribed with cash and the prospect of romance with the girlfriend, according to the documents, which include statements from the woman and letters she exchanged with Nichols. The AP report could not be independently verified.

The plot apparently never got past the planning stage, and Nichols was abruptly transferred to another jail in October 2006 for unknown reasons, the AP reported. Nichols' girlfriend, who began writing to him after his arrest in the courthouse shootings, visited him repeatedly at the jail.

She told investigators that she paid one sheriff's deputy $300-$500 every four to six weeks for an unspecified time period, paid the former paralegal and gave the paralegal three wire payments of $500 to pass along to a second deputy, the AP reported.

No charges have been filed in the alleged breakout plot against Nichols, now in the DeKalb County jail outside Atlanta awaiting trial. His case could have implications far beyond his own trial, Carlson says.

"One way this might end is a constitutional battle here in Georgia over separation of power," Carlson says. "If the Legislature makes a demand for the (public defender financial) records and attempts to enforce that demand with a subpoena, the judge might take the position that that request interferes with the judicial role. We could have the sort of constitutional battle right here in Georgia that we see on Capitol Hill from time to time."

For his part, Kay, 69, says he wouldn't be surprised if it did come to that.

"From a writer's point of view, if I was going to create a novel, the thing that would be more intriguing to me would be the ancillary stuff, not the killings," he says. "It's like dominoes. How many dominoes are going to fall before this thing is finally settled?"