Judge says state and county must pay some Nichols’ defense costs

Published 10:08 am Tuesday, March 6, 2007

ATLANTA (AP) — A Superior Court judge said Monday that any “substantial” change to an earlier ruling that ordered county and state officials to pay some expenses related to accused courthouse gunman Brian Nichols’ defense would prevent Nichols from receiving a fair trial.

Judge Hilton Fuller said he would make some adjustments to his earlier ruling, but would not allow Fulton County and the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council off the hook for sharing the undisclosed costs.

Fuller reiterated Monday that if problems funding Nichols’ defense persist, he will have to suspend the trial even further than he already has.

“The judicial system, the community and all those affected by the outcome in this case deserve nothing less,” Fuller wrote.

The county and the council had asked Fuller to reconsider his Jan. 12 order on Nichols’ defense expenses.

But Fuller said “the court believes that no substantial modifications can be made without risk to the fairness of the trial.”

The exact expenses that were ordered have not been disclosed, and Fuller did not make his modifications public.

Fuller’s earlier order had followed a request by Nichols’ lawyers for court assistance in paying for mental health experts.

The director of the public defender council has said in an affidavit that the expenses the judge ordered paid by the state are not necessary for an effective defense in the Nichols case. The county has objected to paying the expenses it was ordered to pay because it believes that is the responsibility of the state.

“Ensuring adequate indigent defense, especially in a capital case, is never a popular cause,” Fuller wrote Monday. “Perhaps it is even less popular in this particular case. But the rights of all suffer when the rights of the most unpopular are not protected.”

Nichols, 35, was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta for the continuation of his retrial on rape charges when he allegedly beat a deputy, stole her gun and went on a deadly shooting spree on March 11, 2005.

He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial, Rowland Barnes; a court reporter chronicling the proceeding, Julie Ann Brandau; a sheriff’s deputy who chased him outside, Hoyt Teasley; and a federal agent he encountered at a home a few miles away that night, David Wilhelm. Nichols surrendered the next day after allegedly taking a woman hostage in her suburban Atlanta home.

Nichols, who faces a possible death penalty if convicted of murder, has pleaded not guilty.

Jury selection in his murder trial began Jan. 11. Because of the defense funding issues, individual questioning of potential jurors by attorneys in the case has been delayed until March 27.

As of the end of December, Nichols’ defense had already cost more than $1.2 million.