The jury is deadlocked over Atlanta shooter’s sentence. A deadlocked 12-member Atlanta jury may ask Superior Court Judge James Bodiford in writing if they can rehear a controversial tape recording of a telephone conversation in which Nichols tells his brother that he killed four people – and should have targeted prosecutors the day of his courthouse shooting spree. On Nov. 7, after 12 hours of discussion, the jurors convicted Nichols of 54 crimes from the March 11, 2005, courthouse shootings, including four murders, carjackings, robberies and assaults. The panel has already deliberated more than 25 hours in the penalty phase, but appears deadlocked with a 9-3 vote on whether to sentence Nichols to death. Defense attorneys had vehemently objected when the tape was first introduced without warning in November. They’ve called the contents a “bombshell” that would certainly prejudice Nichols’ case, but failed earlier to keep it from the jury.

Today, the jury will ponder the fate of the Atlanta mass murderer. The trial that has lasted for 12 weeks, exhausted a jury that has listened to more than 140 witnesses and seen more than 1,000 pieces of evidence – in a case that has dragged on for more than three and a half years, reached its penultimate moment Monday, reports The Atlanta Journal Constitution. To determine the fate of convicted Atlanta courthouse shooter Brian Nichols, the prosecution tried to nail shut the case for the death penalty, while he defense pleaded with the jury to give mercy to a man who killed four people in a March 11, 2005 murder spree: Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes; court reporter Julie Ann Brandau; sheriff’s deputy Hoyt Teasley and U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm. The jury begins deliberating this morning on a verdict for punishment.

Prosecutors say Atlanta shooter should be put to death. Prosecutors in the Brian Nichols case say the courthouse gunman who killed four people during an escape attempt should be put to death.  “I want you to honestly consider imposing a sentence of death,” prosecutor Kellie Hill told jurors on Wednesday.  Nichols was convicted last week of murder for his 2005 shooting rampage, which left a judge, a sheriff’s deputy and two others dead in the wake of his escape attempt. Prosecutors said even a life sentence would leave the community at risk. Nichols’ attorneys had argued that he was innocent by reason of insanity and that mental illness had led the Atlanta man, who attempted to escape from custody as he awaited a re-trial on rape charges, to go off. But Hill described Nichols as a “conniving, vicious, remorseless and extremely, extremely dangerous person.”  His attorneys asked jurors to look into his background to see if he really deserved to be executed.  Officials say the sentencing phase could last until Thanksgiving.

Death penalty phase begins for Brian Nichols. An Atlanta judge is to begin to weigh arguments this week to determine whether Brian Nichols will be put to death. The Atlanta courthouse gunman was found guilty on Friday of killing four people in a shooting spree that began at a downtown Atlanta courthouse. Nichols, 36, was found guilty Friday in the fatal shootings of a judge, a court reporter, a deputy and a federal agent in the 2005 mêlée. He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming he was gripped by a delusional compulsion that he was a slave rebelling against authority. But a jury soundly rejected his claims, finding him guilty of all 54 counts against him, including murder and aggravated assault.

Jury still out in Atlanta courthouse shooting case. Jurors in the Brian Nichols murder trial will resume deliberations today after going home Thursday without a verdict. Thursday was their first full day of deliberations in a trial that has lasted 32 days. They are considering four killings that Nichols confessed to committing on March 11, 2005. Attorneys wrapped up the case Wednesday with closing arguments. The 12-person jury – six Black females, two White females, two Black males, one White male, and one Asian male – listened to more than 90 witnesses and saw more than 900 pieces of evidence introduced in the more than six weeks of trial, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nichols allegedly escaped from a holding cell in 2005 and shot and killed Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and a court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, in Barnes’ courtroom, where he was to stand trial for rape later that morning. He then allegedly shot and killed Fulton County sheriff’s deputy Sgt, Hoyt Teasley on the street outside the courthouse, and, while on the run, allegedly shot and killed U.S. Customs agent David Wilhelm at Wilhelm’s Buckhead home.

Prosecutor calls accused courthouse shooter “vicious.”

In wrapping up closing arguments in the case against Brian Nichols, who is accused of killing a judge during a courthouse shooting spree, prosecutors played a recording Wednesday of two gunshots and shrieks of a women who saw Nichols shoot the judge and a stenographer in a Fulton County courtroom, reports The Atlanta Journal- Constitution.  After six weeks of testimony, lawyers argue the killings were either the product of a sick mind – according to the defense – or a vengeful one. However, prosecutors dispute the former. “It didn’t have anything to do with insanity – or delusion,” Prosecutor Clint Rucker told jurors when asking them to reject Nichols defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. “The defendant was angry and he was frustrated. He is cold-blooded. He is vicious. He is remorseless. And he is extremely, extremely dangerous.” Nichols, 36, contends his delusion of leading a “slave revolt” against an unjust justice system caused him to escape from custody on March 11, 2005 by viciously beating his guard, taking her gun and killing the judge presiding over his rape trial and his court reporter. At the time, Nichols was facing his second trial in the rape case. The first jury had not been able to decide whether he had raped his former girlfriend. Jurors are expected to deliberate Thursday. To find Nichols not guilty, they would have to decide he couldn’t tell right from wrong.Barack Obama handily crushed the opposition. Barack Obama did more than crush John McCain in the Electoral College tally; he also handily won the popular vote and redrew the great divide between red states and blue states, CNN reports.  Riding a Democratic tide that bolstered the party’s presence in both houses of Congress, Obama garnered about 63 million votes to McCain’s 55.8 million, according to totals late Wednesday. A major part of that victory was the contribution of African-American and young voters, the numbers show. According to exit polls, Obama crushed McCain among African-American voters (95 percent to 4 percent); Latino voters (66 percent to 32 percent); voters under 30 (66 percent to 32 percent ); first-time voters (68 percent to 31 percent); women voters (56 percent to 43 percent); and voters making less than $100,000 a year (55 percent to 43 percent). 

Cellmate says he knew of Nichols’ escape plan.  

Telling the court that he asked Brian Nichols to give up his escape plan, a hardened criminal cried when testifying Tuesday that he shared the blame for the Fulton Courthouse shooting because he knew about the Georgia man’s violent escape and said nothing, reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Willie Tiller Jr., 39, shared a jail cell with Nichols – who said he didn’t think he was being treated fairly at his rape trial from Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and was afraid of going to prison for the rest of his life as a convicted rapist. But Tiller’s testimony goes against Nichols’ claim that he suffers from a mental problem and didn’t know what he was doing when he shot and killed Barnes during his escape in March of 2005. “He said…, ‘There ain’t nothing to do but take it into my own hands,’” Tiller told the jury. “He said if he had his chance, he would kill him, the judge. … I asked him not to do it. … I asked him a thousand times not to… .”  Tiller said that Nichols believed that Barnes had refused to accept a 15-year sentence in exchange for Nichols pleading guilty to raping his girlfriend.  The case went to trial first in February 2004 and ended in a hung jury, with the majority of jurors favoring acquittal. The verdict led Nichols to believe, Tiller said, that he would get out of jail on bond or he might not be retried at all. Instead, Barnes ordered the case retried the next week. Nichols told Tiller that he planned to subdue a guard when changing into a suit for trial, get the guard’s gun and escape, shooting his way to freedom, if necessary. That’s exactly what Nichols later confessed to doing on March 11, 2005 – except he detoured to Barnes’ chambers and killed Barnes and his court reporter. Tiller, a career criminal who has been in and out prison for 19 years, said he had promised Nichols not to divulge the escape plans. Instead, he said he counseled Nichols to “man up,” do his time and that he owed it to his mother “not to do anything stupid and kill somebody.” Nichols promised that he would, but broke his promise and escaped anyway. “I guess I should have told somebody,” Tiller said. “I guess it was as much my fault as his fault for not telling no one.”

The defense for the Atlanta courthouse shooter rested.

Before resting their case Monday, defense attorneys for Brian Nichols did not call him to the witness stand to convince jurors he was not in his right mind when he went on a shooting spree last year that resulted in the death of a judge and several others. His mother testified for two days about what she described as signs that her son had become mentally unbalanced from the spring of 2004 to March 11, 2005, when he went on a rampage at the Fulton County Courthouse where he was on trial for rape. Lead prosecuting attorney Kellie Hill told Superior Court Judge James Bodiford that the state would spend three days calling witnesses to rebut a psychologist’s claim that Nichols suffers from a delusional disorder that made him think he was leading a “slave rebellion” against the justice system. The jury is expected to start deliberating next week after about six weeks of trial.

W. Va. Voters say machines are changing their votes. Three Putnam Co., West Va., voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Read the rest here.

Accused courthouse killer had a bad childhood. Brian Nichols had a troubled childhood, a psychologist told the court on Wednesday. And his absentee drunken father and working mother, and the sexual abuse he experienced at the hands of a cousin contributed to his problems, the psychologist said. Nichols’ troubled early childhood was described by a defense psychologist in court Wednesday, and pegged as the issues that set the stage for events that would take place decades later – when, on March 11, 2005, Nichols escaped from custody at the Fulton County Courthouse and went on a killing rampage that cost four people their lives. “The stresses of his childhood is what carries forward into adulthood,” Mark Cunningham told lead defense attorney Henderson Hill as he took the witness stand for the third day. On Tuesday Cunningham read excerpts from a college paper written by Nichols as an example of what Cunningham said were extreme beliefs that over time developed into delusional behavior. That behavior led Nichols to the rape of a former long-time girlfriend in August 2004, then to the courthouse escape and attacks while he was facing trial for that rape. Nichols has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for the deaths of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, and court reporter Julie Ann Brandau, in Barnes’ courtroom; deputy Hoyt Teasley, outside the courthouse; and, while on the run, U.S. Customs Agent David Wilhelm. Cunningham described Brian Nichols as the “good son” in his family. “He was the achieving one,” who – unlike his older brother who later had drug and legal problems – had “white-collar employment” and earned $80,000 a year. Yet – as evidence of the emotional distance his parents kept from him – when Nichols was charged with the girlfriend’s rape in August 2004, and Nichols’ attorney needed his parents to return to the country and testify at his trial, the parents didn’t come back to testify and “didn’t even visit him” in jail.

Ex D.C. district judge Roy L. Pearson Jr. is trying to revive his highly publicized $54 million lawsuit against a neighborhood dry cleaners that he says lost his pants. Pearson took his case before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals, apparently recycling some of the legal arguments that were rejected last year by a judge in D.C. Superior Court. “This is not about a pair of suit pants,” Pearson, 58, representing himself, told the judges before a packed courtroom. The term “satisfaction guaranteed” is “very subjective” and with “no parameters at all,” he said, accusing the cleaners of fraud. The judges repeatedly asked him to identify previous District cases to support his argument, but Pearson could provide no examples. Christopher Manning, the attorney for Soo and Jin Chung, the owners of Custom Cleaners, which is at the heart of the dispute, argued that Pearson was “entitled to nothing.” Manning challenged the idea that the cleaners even lost Pearson’s Hickey Freeman trousers that he purchased from Nordstrom, saying the cleaners has repeatedly offered Pearson his pants back. Pearson says the trousers the cleaners offered him are not his. Last year, a judge rejected Pearson’s “satisfaction guarantee” argument. Yesterday, Pearson also said a jury should have heard his case, not a judge. But Pearson’s jury request surfaced past the deadline that he had to meet. The appeals court, the District’s highest, is expected to return a decision in two to four months. Depending on the outcome, either side could ask the entire nine-judge appellate court to review the case.

Accused courthouse shooter’s letters describes escape plan.

He had planned to escape, hold up in a hotel or condo in Atlanta, Charlotte or Florida and laugh at police searching in the wrong place for him, Brian Nichols, the defendant in the Atlanta courthouse shooting, wrote in letters revealed in court on Monday. Prosecutors said Nichols wrote to a Connecticut woman, Lisa Meneguzzo, professing love for her as he detailed how she could help him escape from the Fulton County Jail in 2006, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The two handwritten letters were read to the jury over the objection of Nichols’ defense team as prosecutors used Nichols’ own words to show he is a methodical and ruthless killer. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for the deaths of four people after he allegedly beat a deputy in a holding cell and escaped from the Fulton County Courthouse on March 11, 2005. The prosecution has sought in recent days to wrap up its case after 16 days and more than 70 witnesses. They’ve played a videotape of Nichols’ three-hour-long confession; read writings he left behind in a jail holding cell; and played an audiotape of a phone call Nichols made from jail to his father in which Nichols said: “I could have saved them some time and money and told them there was nothing wrong … with me.” Meneguzzo began writing Nichols after his case made national headlines. A senior investigator for the Fulton County district attorney’s office, G.G. Carawan, testified authorities were alerted to Meneguzzo after they discovered a cell phone in Nichols’ cell in March 2007 and checked the phone records. Prosecutors said Nichols and Meneguzzo wrote 58 letters to each other, only two of which were read by GBI forensics documents expert Brian McVicker. In the first, which starts “Hey Lisa,” Nichols tells Meneguzzo he loves her and looks forward to the day they can have a romantic, candlelit interlude with champagne, strawberries, a bubble bath and chocolate.