In a state that did not have a hate crime law until this year, and where the government sometimes allowed vigilante arrests, three white men are on trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man prosecutors allege was “hunted and finally executed” while jogging on Sundays.
Jury selection begins Monday in the high profile case that sparked nationwide protests and prompted Georgia lawmakers to rewrite the state’s statutes. Legal experts believe the vivid details of how 25-year-old Arbery was shot are linked to the long history of the Georgia race riots.
Lee Merritt and Benjamin Crump, the Arbery family attorneys, labeled the murder a “modern day lynching” and said the defendants were now attempting to use Georgia’s laws at the time of Arbery’s death to defend their actions.
“Part of this community believes what they did was a good thing. That’s not a marginal opinion. Their attorneys hang their hats on that defense,” Merritt told ABC News.
Protesters protest against the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery on May 8, 2020 at the Glynn County Courthouse in Braunschweig, Georgia. Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael were arrested the night before and charged with murder.
The three defendants are Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer, his son Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52.
“Just thinking about what I have to go through in the middle of the trial … it’s really scary,” Arbery’s mother Wanda Cooper-Jones told ABC News. “Some days I have my doubts about doing justice to Ahmaud.”
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia on Saturday to seek justice for Arbery’s family.
The defendants have not faced hate crime charges, as Georgia was one of only four states that did not have such a law at the time of Arbery’s assassination. When Georgia’s new hate crime law was signed in June, Governor Brian Kemp cited the Arbery case and said, “We have seen injustice with our own eyes.”
The McMichaels have not pleaded guilty to charges of murder and aggravated assault. Bryan has also pleaded not guilty of murder and the criminal attempt to commit false incarceration.
Booking photos of Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., who were charged with shooting Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia on February 23, 2020.
The three men were also charged with federal hate crimes in April and have all pleaded not guilty.
According to court documents and evidence presented at previous hearings, the men plan to use Georgia’s Civil Detention Act, a pre-civil war law repealed in May due to the Arbery assassination, as a defense . Kemp called the measure an “antiquated law ripe for abuse”.
“The remarkable thing is that the case that resulted in a change in the law is the case that is now on trial,” ABC News said.
The McMichaels attorneys filed a motion this week asking a judge to allow the jury to hear that Arbery was on parole at the time of his death. In an angry response, Crump said the request was a “last minute attempt to assassinate the character of Ahmaud Arbery”.
“The family and our legal team trust that the court will see through these tactics and that justice will be done to Ahmaud and his family,” said Crump. “If these killers get away with nothing, it sends a message that there is no penalty for lynching black men in 2021.”
1,000 jury questionnaires sent out
A thousand questionnaires were sent out to potential jurors, or roughly every 85 eligible Glynn County, Georgia resident, Ron Adams, the Glynn County’s clerk, told The Associated Press.
Brian Buckmire, a public defender for murders in Brooklyn, New York and an employee of ABC News, said despite the large jury pool, he believes it will be “extremely difficult” to find 12 impartial people plus proxies for the panel.
“It will be on their tongue and in the back of their minds,” said Buckmire, who is also an anchor for the Law & Crime Network. “I think it will be hard to find someone who hasn’t reached a conclusion on this matter.”
Wanda Cooper-Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery, stands in front of a painting of her son at New Springfield Baptist Church after a candlelight vigil for him on February 23, 2021 in Waynesboro, Georgia, on the anniversary of his death at New Springfield Baptist Church.
The case has been in the national spotlight since the Arbery assassination in February 2020, as protesters took to the streets for days to request the suspects’ arrest and when two district attorneys withdrew.
Former Braunschweig prosecutor Jackie Johnson, the first woman prosecutor to receive the case and once had a working relationship with Gregory McMichael, was charged in September with breaching her oath of office by allegedly showing “mercy and affection” and one to Gregory McMichael Number of offenses that hinders a law enforcement officer. Johnson, who lost a re-election bid in November 2020, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Bomb video and racist slur
Travis and Gregory McMichael were arrested on May 7, 2020, more than two months after Arbery’s death. They were charged with the murder when a cell phone video surfaced showing them blocking Arbery’s path with their pickup truck on a street in their Satilla Shores neighborhood, near Brunswick.
The footage shows Arbery trying to circumvent the McMichaels’ parked vehicle only to meet Travis McMichael. The video shows the two men fighting and Travis McMichael firing the first shotgun and hitting Arbery in the chest. His white T-shirt is immediately soaked in blood. He tried to escape, but collapsed and died on the scene, as the video shows.
An autopsy revealed that Arbery was shot two more times, one in the upper left chest and one in the right wrist, authorities said.
Bryan, who taped the video pulling up his truck, was arrested about two weeks after Travis and Gregory McMichael.
“This is going to be the star of the show and it will be shown more than once,” Carlson said of the video. “I would say Rodney King, George Floyd, and the Arbery videos are three of the most important criminal evidence we have ever seen.”
The video was played at a preliminary hearing in June 2020, a trial during which a judge ordered the three defendants to stand on trial for murder.
Afternoon jogging becomes fatal
Arbery was jogging through the predominantly white Satilla Shores neighborhood on February 23, 2020 for a Sunday afternoon jog when he stopped and walked into a house under construction, as presented at the preliminary hearing. A surveillance video showed Arbery, who lived in another part of Braunschweig, looked around the unsecured house and left empty-handed.
A man organizes t-shirts to commemorate George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery outside the Glynn County courthouse where Gregory and Travis McMichael attended a preliminary hearing on June 4, 2020 in Brunswick, Georgia. The two are charged with the fatal shooting of Arbery in 2020.
Arbery continued jogging past the McMichaels’ house, where Gregory McMichael spotted him and believed he was a description of a burglar suspect who, according to his lawyer, was featured in a surveillance video posted online by his neighborhood association.
Investigators claim that Gregory McMichael and his son armed themselves and chased Arbery in their pickup truck. Bryan allegedly joined the chase and, according to prosecutors, tried to block Arbery’s path with his truck.
During the preliminary hearing in June, Richard Dial, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, testified that Bryan told investigators that he heard Travis McMichael yelling a racial slur at Arbery as he lay dying on the floor.
Argument of self defense
Travis McMichael claims he shot Arbery in self-defense.
In an attempt to accuse Arbery of being aggressive when confronted with law enforcement agencies, defense attorneys filed for Arbery’s previous row with the police and a 2018 mental health diagnosis suggesting he may have a schizoaffective disorder suffered, which was presented to the jury. Timothy R. Walmsley, Chatham County Supreme Court judge appointed to preside over the Glynn County trial, denied both motions because he deemed them irrelevant to the case.
Carlson said the trial judge could try to strike a balance and not allow prosecutors to bring in racist messages claiming Travis McMichael was written on friends or his Confederate flag license plate.
“The judge will, of course, work very hard to ensure that the racial aspect of the case, racial hostility and racial aversion do not play a major role in emotionalising the case,” said Carlson. “But it certainly doesn’t help the defense.”
ABC News’s Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
