Waking the Sleeping Demon: Life without parole, plus

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Life without parole, plus

With the jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Judge Bodiford declared them "hung" last night. This morning Judge Bodiford sentenced Nichols to seven life sentences and four sentences of life without parole plus 485 years, with all time to be served consecutively. Though he offered little commentary before imposing the sentence that will ensure Nichols spends the rest of his life behind bars, Judge Bodiford did make one lasting comment. He opinined that there were certainly some who wish that Federal Agent Wilhem would have beaten Nichols to the draw instead of the other way around. Agent Wilhem was the last of Nichols' shooting victims on the night of March 11th and is a reference to a comment Nichols made during his videotaped confession of how he "beat Agent Wilhelm to the draw."

1 comments:

The Constant Complainer said...: I found your blog link through a Blog Catalog search and decided to check it out. I was doing some research for one of my own posts.

This is a very interesting niche blog and I enjoyed reading a number of your posts.

I have very mixed feeling about our judicial system these days to say the least...

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your Friday.

The Constant Complainer
Cleveland, OH; March 13, 2009 10:03 PM

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Welcome

Hello Readers and Fellow Bloggers! Although my new book is currently available at my website and other major retail outlets like amazon and target.com, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to, "Waking the Sleeping Demon."

Writing "Waking the Sleeping Demon" was a life-changing experience for me because I know many of the people featured in the book. It is a brutually honest, first-hand account of the days leading up to the Atlanta Courthouse shootings, and the 26 hours following the killings, told primarily through Prosecutor Ash Joshi's eyes. Although most of you were not in Atlanta when the Courthouse murders occurred, you probably remember hearing about them on the news. So often when heinous crimes occur that capture the public's collective conscience, the books which follow chronicle the killer's life story. Althougth this book explores aspects of Brian Nichols' life and forces readers to confront their views on the death penalty, this is not a piece about Brian Nichols.

Instead, this book is about the lives of the people affected by this tragedy. My intent was to transport readers into the minds of the victims during the time Brian Nichols' crime spree was unfolding. By most accounts, it is a bold and daring approach to this type of story because the killer is not at the heart of the story. It is my sincere hope, however, that when you read "Waking the Sleeping Demon," you come away with an appreciation for the courage it took for Ash Joshi to reveal so much of himself in the name of truth, and then ask yourself whether you could do the same. Thank you for your time, and I welcome your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Shoran

Book Excerpt

In the 26 hours that Brian Nichols terrorized the city of Atlanta, those of us who were his intended victims hid in fear that we were next. We felt his mission was incomplete. For my family, this was the single worst experience imaginable. The thought that a homicidal maniac was loose and intent on killing not only me, but likely my entire family if given the opportunity, was beyond comprehension.
My colleague Gayle Abramson and I were the prosecutors responsible for convincing a jury that Nichols raped his former girlfriend. We failed. A prosecutor’s job is to persuade 12 people that the person on trial has committed the crime for which he is charged. The fact that I was not able to accomplish my job in the first of the two rape trials will haunt me for the rest of my life. My failure in the first trial did not simply mean that a guilty person went free, that is a possible consequence of every trial, and a hazard of the job. Rather, my loss in the first trial meant that four innocent people were murdered.
(More excerpts are available on my website.)

Waking the Sleeping Demon

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Life without parole, plus

1 comments:

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