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"Nichols trial: First witness to deaths testifies; 'The judge never saw him': Lawyer in courtroom on day in '05 says shooter looked like staff."

"Nichols trial: First witness to deaths testifies; 'The judge never saw him': Lawyer in courtroom on day in '05 says shooter looked like staff." Today's edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution contains an article that begins, "Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes never knew he was about to die. Nicole Waller, a young lawyer, was appearing before Barnes that morning to ask him to dismiss a business lawsuit, when she saw a well-dressed man enter the courtroom from the judge's chambers. Waller, who was in midsentence, assumed the man was a staffer as he strode up behind the judge with his right hand extended. 'It looked to me like he was handing something to the judge,' Waller testified Monday. 'The judge never saw him.' Barnes had just indulged in his trademark humor at the good-natured expense of one of the attorneys. The newcomer, later identified as Brian Nichols, stepped up on the judge's bench. Nichols then fired, and Barnes was fatally wounded, Waller said. Then Nichols aimed at the court reporter, Julie Ann Brandau, and fired again, hitting her in the head, Waller said. Waller, the 18th witness to testify in Nichols' murder trial in Superior Court, was the first one who witnessed the deaths of Barnes and Brandau on March 11, 2005, in the Fulton County Courthouse shootings."

And, later today, the newspaper posted online an update headlined "Nichols caused panic when he left courthouse; Deputy pursued defendant through complex, onto street where he died."

Full post as published by How Appealing on September 30, 2008 (boomark / email).