If Brian Nichols doesn't deserve the death penalty, then who does?

If the state of Georgia can't execute a man who went on a Fulton County Courthouse shooting spree, murdering four people in cold blood, including a judge and court reporter, then why have a capital punishment law at all?

Only three of the 12-member Nichols jury opposed sentencing the brutal killer to die -- and that was enough to convert his term to a lifetime of free room, board and medical care at taxpayer expense. State law requires a death penalty verdict be unanimous; when it's not, the judge hands down a life sentence behind bars, which is what Nichols got.

This wasn't the first time a handful of jurors -- indeed, sometimes only one juror -- has, perhaps with forethought, prevented a well-deserved death penalty from being carried out.

The Georgia Legislature has considered several bills in recent years to allow a death verdict when the jury vote is less than unanimous. Spearheaded by tough-on-crime proponents such as former state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, one such measure that passed the House in 2007 and again this year would allow a death sentence with an 11-1 vote, a 10-2 vote or a 9-3 vote, as happened in the Nichols case.

The House bill, however, failed in the Senate. There is hope the issue will be reconsidered in the next session.

No way is the system operating properly when jurors can get away with lying to the court that they're not opposed to the death penalty when they clearly are.

Yes, you have to conclude the three holdouts on the Nichols jury lied. They wouldn't even deliberate with the other jurors on sentencing. Ideological opposition to capital punishment is the only reason they could possibly have for doing that.

What other reason could there be?

It couldn't be because they thought Nichols may not be guilty. A host of witnesses saw him go on his murder spree and he even admitted to it himself.

Might it be because the crime wasn't serious enough to warrant death? No, that won't wash. The murder of four people couldn't be more heinous.

How about his civil rights? Were they violated because he's black? That doesn't pass muster either. There's no evidence to suggest the legal system would have treated a white murder suspect any differently than it treated him.

The last possible reason a juror might exempt Nichols from the death sentence -- though it's a stretch -- is that the killings were a first offense. Well, that's not true either. Nichols had been in and out of trouble with the law, and was being escorted to his trial on rape charges when he overpowered a female guard and seized her firearm, which he used on his killing spree.

Obviously, the three jurors refused to join in even considering the death sentence because they are death penalty foes. There's nothing wrong with opposing the death penalty -- except when you're called as a potential juror in a death penalty case -- where you are asked under oath whether you can vote to condemn a guilty man.

At least something good will come out of the horrendous Nichols verdict if the General Assembly next year finally passes a bill that will allow for less-than-unanimous verdicts in death penalty sentencing.

Jurors must stop being allowed to subvert justice by bringing their own agendas to the jury room.