Courthouse shooting suspect back in court
 |  Brian Nichols sits Friday in the Atlanta courthouse where authorities say he killed a judge and a court reporter. |
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 Brian Nichols appears in the same Atlanta courthouse where he is accused of going on a fatal shooting rampage.
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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A 33-year-old man accused in a shooting rampage that left three people dead at Atlanta's Fulton County Courthouse appeared in the same courthouse Friday.
Brian Nichols was there for a preindictment hearing on defense requests to question potential grand jurors about their exposure to pretrial publicity and to record all grand jury proceedings.
The Fulton County district attorney is expected to charge Nichols with four counts of murder.
Dressed in a gray suit, Nichols smiled at his attorneys when they entered the courtroom Friday, although he appeared subdued.
His voice was nearly inaudible when he spoke to DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller.
Fuller told attorneys he would revisit the defense motion within the next few weeks.
Eight armed deputies accompanied Nichols to court. The defendant wore ankle shackles but not handcuffs.
Nichols is accused of killing a Fulton County Superior Court judge, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy, then killing a federal agent who was working on his home in Atlanta's Buckhead section.
He is being held without bond on charges of rape, aggravated sodomy and false imprisonment. Those charges stem from an earlier arrest. Nichols was on trial for a second time in that case when he escaped March 11. His first trial ended with a hung jury.
A judge has already declared a mistrial in Nichols' retrial on the rape, aggravated sodomy and false imprisonment charges.
The rampage in March began when the former linebacker allegedly overpowered a female sheriff's deputy in a holding area as his handcuffs were being taken off so that he could change his clothes, authorities said.
They struggled for about three minutes, with Nichols grabbing some keys from her and taking her gun from a lockbox, authorities said. He then walked calmly across a bridge from the new courthouse building to the old building where Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes' eighth-floor courtroom was located, police said.
He briefly took several people hostage, including another deputy who was disarmed by Nichols, authorities said. Authorities said he then went into the courtroom and killed Barnes, who had been presiding over his rape trial, and court reporter Julie Ann Brandau.
Sgt. Hoyt Teasley of the Fulton County Sheriff's Department was killed on the street outside the courthouse as Nichols escaped, authorities said.
Several carjackings later, with a massive search under way, authorities said Nichols apparently hopped a MARTA transit train to Atlanta's upscale Buckhead neighborhood, where he found U.S. Customs Agent David Wilhelm working alone at his home, which was under construction.
Nichols shot and killed Wilhelm and took his vehicle, eventually making his way to Ashley Smith's apartment in the Atlanta suburb of Duluth, where he held her hostage for seven hours before letting her go, authorities said.
