A judge on Saturday sentenced the man who killed four people in a brazen courthouse escape to multiple life sentences with no chance of parole and hundreds more years on more than fifty charges, according to AP. Brian Nichols, 37, was found guilty last month of murder and dozens of other counts for the March 2005 rampage that led from a downtown courthouse to an Atlanta neighborhood and ended with his capture the next day in a suburban county. He will likely die in prison after Superior Court Judge James Bodiford handed down the maximum sentence on each charge, to run consecutively. «If there was any more I could give you, I would,» the judge said. Nichols was spared multiple death sentences when his jury failed to reach a unanimous decision recommending the punishment, as required by Georgia law. Nichols, who did not take the stand in his own defense, spoke in court for the first time on Saturday. «I just wanted to say that I know that the things I've done caused a lot of pain and I'm sorry,» he said. «And I just wanted to say that I will not bring dishonor to the decision to spare my life. That's it.» The sentence caps more than three years of efforts to bring Nichols to justice since his arrest that were repeatedly bogged down by legal complications, frustrating victims' relatives and angering state legislators over the costs.
