Brian Nichols was sen­tenced to life in prison with­out parole in Georgia on December 13 after the jury could not reach a unan­i­mous ver­dict of death. Nichols had been found guilty of killing a judge, a court reporter, a police deputy, and a U.S. Customs agent dur­ing his escape from a cour­t­house hear­ing on oth­er charges. The jury remained dead­locked in a 9 – 3 vote after four days of delib­er­a­tions. A unan­i­mous vote is required for a death sen­tence, just as it is for a guilty ver­dict. The jury did find the exis­tence of 11 aggra­vat­ing fac­tors against Nichols.

“An awful lot of mon­ey has been spent on this case,” said Stephen Bright, an Atlanta lawyer and nation­al­ly renowned oppo­nent of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“And for no pur­pose, except to have a show tri­al at enor­mous expense that has dam­aged Georgia’s court sys­tem in many ways.” It was esti­mat­ed that the state spent $3 mil­lion for the defense in this case. Prosecution costs would add to the tax­pay­ers’ expense. ​“I don’t think Brian Nichols won,” said Christina Greenway, daugh­ter of the court reporter Nichols mur­dered. ​“In his own words, it is not in his DNA to stay in prison. Now he can look for­ward to a life in prison.” The pros­e­cu­tor had turned down Nichols’ offer a year ago to plead guilty in exchange for a life sen­tence.
(S. Visser, J. Scott, ​“Nichols gets life with­out parole,” Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC), December 13, 2008; also, B. Rankin, ​“THE NICHOLS CASE: Failure to win death penal­ty res­onates,” AJC, Dec. 14, 2008). See Arbritrariness and Costs.

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