Jury asks to hear Nichols jailhouse telephone call

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Jurors struggling to agree on a sentence for Atlanta courthouse shooter Brian Nichols asked Thursday to listen to a jailhouse phone call between the defendant and his brother.

Prosecutors played part of the phone call earlier in Nichols' capital murder trial, over objections from defense lawyers. Superior Court Judge James Bodiford told the jurors he would consider their request to listen to the entire call, prompting defense lawyers to renew their objections.

The jury made the request after announcing they were deadlocked 9 to 3, but they did not say which way they were leaning. The jury must be unanimous to impose the death penalty.

Nichols placed the phone call to his brother after he was arrested for killing a judge and a court reporter in the Fulton County Courthouse, where he was being tried for rape.

In the call, Nichols said he had admitted to killing a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff's deputy and a federal agent on March 11, 2005, and that he would "do it again." The only thing he would have done differently would be to stop by the district attorney's office and shoot him, Nichols said on the tape, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Bodiford said he would decide whether to play the tapes Friday morning, after the jury submits a written request to hear the conversation again, the Journal-Constitution reported.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Nichols, who was convicted in November of 54 counts related to the shooting spree, which began with three deaths in a downtown Atlanta courthouse.

Nichols also was convicted of killing a federal agent in northern Atlanta. He was taken into custody 26 hours after taking a woman hostage in her apartment in neighboring Gwinnett County.

"If you give him life and not death, especially given everything he's done, he will have nothing to lose and everything to gain because he is not finished yet," Prosecutor Clint Rucker told the jury.

"He did it once and he will do it again. He is conniving, he is cold-blooded, he is vicious and he is remorseless and he is extremely, extremely dangerous."

If, in re-polling the jury, the judge finds that seven or more jurors are in favor of the death penalty or a life sentence without the possibility of parole, the judge can sentence Nichols to life without parole.

If the majority is in favor of a life sentence with the possibility of parole, the judge can sentence Nichols only to that.

The defense said Nichols, who confessed to the killings, suffered from a mental disorder.

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