Judge Hilton Fuller says he is stepping down from the case of accused courthouse shooter Brian Nichols.

The judge had recently been criticized for comments published in The New Yorker magazine. Commenting on the defense strategy of relying on a form of the insanity defense, Fuller was quoted as saying, “That's their only defense, because everyone in the world knows he did it.”

“Whether I was accurately quoted is immaterial,” Fuller wrote in a recusal letter to Fulton Chief Judge Doris L. Downs. “What is material is the perception created by that attribution.”

Fuller, a retired DeKalb County judge who was asked to take the Nichols case after all Fulton County judges recused themselves, said he will remain a senior judge and available for other specially assigned cases.

"I accepted this case for all the right reasons," Fuller said in an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday. "It bothers me that I must surrender it at this time before its completion. But it is the right thing to do for the case and the judicial system."

It was not immediately clear who would take his place on the Nichols case. It also wasn't clear how Fuller's resignation from the case will impact the resumption of Nichols' murder trial, which Fuller had suspended indefinitely because the state public defender's office, amid a budget crunch, cut off funding to Nichols' lawyers.

Fuller has been criticized for some of his decisions in the case related to defense funding issues. He also has been the subject of a state legislative panel inquiry, and prosecutors have requested that he be removed from the case.

The latest problem for Fuller arose this week when The New Yorker magazine published an article on the Brian Nichols case that quoted Fuller asserting that the defendant committed the crimes.

Fuller insisted he didn't recall making the comment and that his arrangement with the writer was that their conversation would be for background only, an arrangement he has had with other reporters, including one from AP. The quote fueled more criticism of Fuller.

The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council has said Nichols' defense had cost the council $1.8 million by the end of June, when it cut off funding to Nichols' lawyers because it couldn't meet its obligations to lawyers for other indigent defendants in Georgia.

Fuller repeatedly expressed concern that if the trial were to go forward and Nichols were convicted, an appellate court would reverse the conviction because of ineffective counsel. He received support from others in the legal community who worried judicial independence was being threatened by state lawmakers seeking to review Fuller's decisions.

Nichols, 36, was being escorted to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse for the continuation of his retrial on rape charges when he allegedly beat a deputy, stole her gun and went on the shooting spree on March 11, 2005.

He is accused of killing the judge presiding over the rape trial; a court reporter chronicling the proceeding; a sheriff's deputy who chased him outside; and a federal agent he encountered that night. Nichols surrendered the next day after allegedly taking a woman hostage in her suburban Atlanta home.

Nichols, who faces a possible death penalty if convicted of murder, has pleaded not guilty. An alleged plot by Nichols to escape from jail after his arrest for the shootings is being investigated by a special prosecutor, who so far has not filed any charges.

Reporting from the Associated Press contributed to this story.