Georgia DA is INDICTED for obstructing cops in Ahmaud Arbery murder case after she 'blocked the arrest of her former investigator and his son'
A former Georgia prosecutor was indicted on Thursday on misconduct charges alleging she used her position to shield the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery from being charged with crimes immediately after the shootings.
A grand jury in coastal Glynn County indicted former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson on charges of violating her oath of office and hindering a law enforcement officer.
Arbery was killed on February 23, 2020, after a white father and son, Greg and Travis McMichael, armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-Black man in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood outside the coastal city of Brunswick.
A neighbor, William 'Roddie' Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun.
The McMichaels said they believed Arbery was a burglar and that he was shot after attacking Travis McMichael with his fists.
Police did not charge any of them immediately following the shooting, and the McMichaels and Bryan remained free for more than two months until the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case.
All three were charged with murder in May 2020 and face trial this fall.
Ex-Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson (left) was indicted on Thursday on misconduct charges alleging she used her position to shield the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery (right) from being charged with crimes immediately after the shootings
(L to R) Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and William 'Roddie' Bryan Jr are scheduled to go on trial in Georgia in October. Gregory McMichael worked as an investigator in Johnson's office
In this image from video posted on Twitter on May 5, 2020, Arbery, left, struggles with Travis McMichael over a shotgun on a street in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia, on February 23, 2020
Arbery is seen stumbling and falling to the ground after being shot as Travis McMichael stands by holding a shotgun
Greg McMichael had worked as an investigator in Johnson's office and left her a cellphone message following the shooting.
The indictment says Johnson showed 'favor and affection' toward Greg McMichael in the investigation and interfered with police officers at the scene by 'directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest.'
Johnson has insisted she did nothing wrong, saying she immediately recused herself from the case because Greg McMichael was a former employee.
She recommended an outside prosecutor, Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill, who was appointed to the case and concluded no charges were warranted.
Barnhill later stepped aside after Arbery's family noted he had a son working for Johnson as an assistant prosecutor.
Johnson lost reelection last year, and blamed the controversy over Arbery's death for her defeat.
She did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday.
Last year, Johnson defended her office's involvement, which she insisted was minimal because the elder McMichael worked for her as an investigator before retiring in 2019.
Earlier this week, a judge barred defense attorneys from bringing up Arbery's past run-ins with the law during the upcoming murder trial. Arbery's record included a 2013 arrest for bringing a gun into a school gym, and a 2017 for trying to steal a TV from a store. He was on probation stemming from a shoplifting conviction at the time of his death
That relationship required the office to step away from the case.
'I'm confident an investigation is going to show my office did what it was supposed to and there was no wrongdoing on our part,' Johnson told The Associated Press last year.
Johnson said Glynn County police contacted two of her assistant prosecutors on the day of the shooting, seeking legal advice.
She said her assistants immediately responded that they could not get involved because of the conflict of interest.
Asked if anyone in her office told police not to arrest the McMichaels or suggested the shooting may have been justified, Johnson said, 'Absolutely not.'
She said it was the police who brought up self-defense during their call.
'The police represented it as a burglary case with a self-defense issue,' Johnson said.
Police were seeking 'guidance on how to proceed and whether to make an arrest. Our office could not advise or assist them because of our obvious conflict.'
Johnson said she reached out to Barnhill, asking if his office could advise Glynn County police.
Because it was a fatal shooting, she said, 'I didn't want the case to stall.'
The attorney general ended up appointing Barnhill to take over on February 27, four days after the shooting.
But in his May 2020 letter asking the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate possible misconduct by the prosecutors, Carr said he was never told that Barnhill had already advised police 'that he did not see grounds for the arrest of any of the individuals involved in Mr. Arbery's death.'
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley ruled evidence of Arbery's past run-ins with the law is irrelevant and could be prejudicial
Weeks after Carr appointed him to the case, and just a few days before recusing himself April 7, Barnhill wrote that the McMichaels 'were following, in "hot pursuit," a burglary suspect, with solid first hand probable cause, in their neighborhood, and asking/telling him to stop.'
'It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived. Under Georgia Law this is perfectly legal,' Barnhill advised in the undated letter, to Glynn County police Capt. Tom Jump.
Johnson said she could not recall if she had told Carr's office that she enlisted Barnhill's help before recusing herself.
Barnhill had the case for about a month before he stepped aside under pressure because his son works for Johnson as an assistant prosecutor.
Tom Durden, the district attorney in nearby Hinesville, next took the case and had it for more than three weeks before the video became public and he called in the GBI.
In May of last year, Carr replaced him with Cobb County District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes, one of only seven black district attorneys in Georgia.
She's based in Atlanta, far from the coastal community where the shooting happened, and is 'a respected attorney with experience, both as a lawyer and a judge,' said Carr, a Republican.
According to the police report, Gregory McMichael said Arbery attacked his son before the younger McMichael shot him.
The autopsy showed Arbery was hit by three shotgun blasts.
All three shots can be heard on the video, which clearly shows the final shot hitting Arbery at point-blank range before he staggers and falls face down.
According to personnel records, the elder McMichael worked for Johnson’s office from November 1995 through May 2019. He consistently got good performance reviews.
But in 2014, the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council notified the district attorney’s office that in five years since 2005, Gregory McMichael had either failed to do enough training hours or failed to take mandatory firearms or use-of-deadly force classes, documents show.
The result was that he had technically lacked arrest powers since January 1, 2006 - a situation that could have made Johnson and her office liable for any improper actions by McMichael during that time, according to a memo in the file.
In submitting a training waiver to remedy the situation, McMichael said it was a 'great embarrassment.'
Documents in the file show he again failed to complete mandatory training in 2018 and relinquished his certification, serving out his final few months with the district attorney's office as a non-sworn liaison to law enforcement agencies in one of the counties in the judicial circuit.
Lawyers representing the McMichales say the father and son (pictured in court) suspected Arbery was a burglar
Earlier this week, a Georgia judge ruled that defense attorneys for the three men charged with killing Arbery will be barred from presenting evidence of the slain black jogger's past run-ins with the law during their clients' upcoming murder trials.
Jury selection is scheduled to start on October 18.
Attorneys for the McMichaels wanted the jury to hear about Arbery's two prior arrests to cast doubt on prosecutors' contention that he was merely an innocent jogger.
Defense attorneys say the white men reasonably suspected Arbery had committed a crime when they began the pursuit that ended in his death.
Prosecutors argued that defense lawyers were seeking to put Arbery on trial by making his criminal record and other prior legal problems part of the case. None of the three defendants knew Arbery, or anything about his past, prior to the shooting.
Prosecutors said his past was irrelevant to their decision to arm themselves and ultimately shoot a man who was trying to run away.
In a written order, Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley ruled evidence of Arbery's past run-ins with the law could unfairly 'lead the jury to believe that although Arbery did not apparently commit any felony that day, he may pose future dangerousness in that he would eventually commit more alleged crimes, and therefore, the Defendants' actions were somehow justified.'
'The character of victim is neither relevant nor admissible in murder trial,' the judge wrote in his ruling Monday.
Jason Sheffield, one of Travis McMichael’s lawyers, called the judge's ruling 'baffling.' He argued to that not allowing the defense to bring up Arbery's 'prior motives' would result in jurors being 'denied the truth,' reported Atlanta Journal Constitution.
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