Judge resigns in courthouse shooting case

ATLANTA, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The judge presiding in the case of a courthouse shooting spree in Atlanta resigned Wednesday over potentially pejorative comments in a published interview.

Fulton County Superior Court Hilton Fuller recused himself in a letter to Chief Judge Dorris Downs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The letter came a day after he was quoted in an article on the New Yorker's Web site as saying suspect Brian Nichols' plan for a mental health defense is "their only defense, because everyone in the world knows he did it."

Nichols, whose trial has already been delayed five times, is charged in the March 2005 killings of a Fulton judge and three other people.

"Judicial impartiality, real or perceived is a critical element of the trial process," Fuller said in his letter. "Whether I was accurately quoted is immaterial. What is material is the perception created by that attribution. For that reason, I hereby recuse myself from further proceedings in this case."

Troup County Superior Court Judge Quillian Baldwin, the administrative judge for the Sixth Judicial District, will name Fuller's replacement because all the Fulton County Superior Court judges recused themselves. Baldwin said he would make a decision within a few days of getting official notice of Fuller's resignation.