Fulton County Judge James Bodiford has sentenced Brian Nichols to hundreds of years in prior for the 2005 killings of four people. Nichols escaped the death penalty after jurors deadlocked earlier this week. When a jury can’t agree on the death penalty, Georgia law kicks in and requires a judge to consider life in prison with or without a chance of parole. In 2005, Nichols was on trial for rape in Fulton County, when he grabbed a guard's gun and fatally shot the judge overseeing his case, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy in a downtown Atlanta courthouse. During his day long escape, Nichols shot and killed an off duty federal agent, and took a local woman hostage. In his defense, Nichols claimed to be a slave revolting against his captors. Judge James Bodiford sentenced Brian Nichols to seven life sentences and four sentences of life without parole plus 485 years.
