Gunman avoids death sentence

ATLANTA — The Atlanta courthouse gunman who killed a judge and three other people avoided the death penalty Friday when jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision on his sentence.

Superior Court Judge James Bodiford is required by state law to sentence Brian Nichols to life and will decide in a hearing scheduled for this morning whether that will include the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors had urged jurors to sentence Nichols to death after he was convicted last month of murder and dozens of other counts in the March 2005 killings.

Nichols, 37, was on trial for rape when he grabbed a gun and fatally shot the judge, a court reporter and a sheriff’s deputy at the courthouse. He fled, killing a federal agent in an Atlanta neighborhood.

He was captured about 26 hours later after a young woman whose apartment he forced himself into was able to escape and call 911.

Ashley Smith Robinson, a former drug addict, testified during Nichols’ trial that she gave him drugs, which seemed to calm him, and read to him from “The Purpose-Driven Life,” a Christian self-help book by Orange County mega-church pastor Rick Warren.

Lawyers from both sides refused to comment until after today’s sentencing, as did victim’s relatives and jurors.