Nichols' lawyers: Assure funding or remove death penalty option

<p>Accused courthouse gunman Brian Nichols' lawyers, worried they won't have enough money for defense costs during trial, asked a judge Tuesday to consider allowing their client to plead guilty in exchange for removing the death penalty as a sentencing option.</p><p>The request was one of several remedies suggested by Nichols' lawyers in a court filing in which they demanded assurances that there will be enough state funds to pay their costs during the trial, which has been put off until Sept. 10.</p><p>They said that if they don't get that promise in the next few weeks, Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller should consider, among other things, barring prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the case.</p><p>"This would result in the immediate tendering of a plea by Mr. Nichols and the scheduling of a sentencing hearing at the pleasure of the court and the prosecution," Nichols' lawyers wrote.</p><p>Nichols, through his attorneys, has previously offered in writing to change his plea from not guilty to guilty to murder in exchange for the state taking the death penalty off the table, but District Attorney Paul Howard has rejected the idea. Howard has said he believes a jury should decide Nichols' sentence.</p><p>The defense motion appears to seek for the court to force the issue unless the state can assure Nichols an adequate defense.</p><p>A spokeswoman for Howard had no immediate comment on the motion.</p><p>In March, Fuller postponed jury selection until September because of problems funding Nichols' defense.</p><p>Last week, an official at the state council that is paying Nichols' defense costs said those funding problems persist, and the council estimated that the total cost of defending Nichols could reach $2.4 million by the end of trial.</p><p>The defense motion said prosecutors have added to the cost of the defense by listing 320 people on their witness list, hiring renowned experts in forensic science, including Dr. Henry Lee, and retaining a San Francisco-based jury consulting firm to assist the prosecution. The motion also says the prosecution has hired several well-known experts in psychiatry, presumably to challenge Nichols' expected mental health defense at trial.</p><p>"Mr. Nichols seeks clear and unmistakable assurances that his defense team will be able to proceed effectively through the remaining summer months of pretrial preparations, into the beginning of trial on Sept. 10, and until the conclusion of this trial sometime in 2008," the defense motion said.</p><p>It added that for the past couple of months, however, "all indications have been that these assurances cannot and will not be forthcoming due to the absence of sufficient funding for the defense in this case," the motion said.</p><p>Among other remedies suggested by the defense: order the state to comply with a previous order to secure funding for the defense or postpone the trial indefinitely until sufficient funding can be obtained.</p><p>Authorities say Nichols was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta on March 11, 2005, for the continuation of his retrial in a rape case when he beat a deputy and stole her gun.</p><p>He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial, a court reporter chronicling the proceeding, a sheriff's deputy who chased him outside and a federal agent he encountered at a home a few miles away. Prosecutors say he took a woman hostage the next day in her suburban Atlanta home, then surrendered.</p>