On March 11, 2005, Judge Rowland Wayne Barnes, a 64-year-old White man, was fatally shot in his Fulton County Superior Court courtroom in Atlanta. The shooting began when the defendant on trial, Brian Nichols, overpowered a sheriff’s deputy, took her gun, and opened fire. Judge Barnes and his court reporter, Julie Brandau, were killed inside the courtroom. Nichols then shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy as he fled the courthouse and later killed a federal agent during his escape.

A massive manhunt ended the next day when Nichols was captured at an apartment complex in Duluth, Georgia. Barnes had served on the Fulton Superior Court since his 1998 appointment and also taught as an adjunct professor at Emory University School of Law; colleagues remembered him as fair and kind-hearted with a good sense of humor.