Nichols won't get new judge -- Let the trial begin. And who isn't angry at the slow pace of the case & at the state-paid tab for Nichols' defense team

From the AJC:

Superior Court Judge James Bodiford called the victim "a friend" and the killing "a brutal murder," but that doesn't mean he can't be fair to the man accused of the slaying, another judge ruled Thursday.

On Tuesday, the defense filed more court papers asking for another hearing because it learned Bodiford had met with another judge to discuss the Nichols case shortly after being appointed in February. That judge, Henry County Superior Court Judge Arch McGarity, had expressed anger at the slow pace of the case and at the state-paid tab for Nichols' defense team, according to Tuesday's filing. [Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller, who stepped down earlier this year after being quoted in the New Yorker magazine as saying everyone knows Nichols committed the killings, and whom Bodiford replaced,] had refused to move the case forward because of a funding fight between Nichols' lawyers and the state Public Defenders Standards Council.

That hearing also was denied.