After the first week of jury selection in the murder trial surrounding Ahmaud Arbery's death, the family of the 25-year-old Black man gunned down after being accused of trespassing told local news outlets injustice is still rearing its ugly head in the case. Ex-cop Gregory McMichael, his son Travis, and area resident William "Roddie" Bryan, who filmed parts of the deadly encounter, are accused of murdering Arbery after the McMichaels earlier interpreted the former high school football standout jogging in coastal Georgia’s Satilla Shores community as a criminal act. Despite having Bryan's video, it took prosecutors 74 days following Arbery's death on Feb. 23, 2020 in Brunswick to make an arrest in the case. Former Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson has been charged with obstruction and violating her oath of office in her handling of the case, and George Barnhill, the district attorney of the Waycross Judicial Circuit who took the case after Johnson, argued against an arrest before revealing that his son had before worked with Gregory McMichael, a former investigator in Johnson's office.
What’s worse is all of those injustices are not even the ones Arbery’s family is talking about in their latest efforts to advocate for justice. Glynn County, the county holding the murder trial, "mistakenly" revealed to potential jurors Arbery's mental health and prior criminal history, which a judge earlier determined would not be a part of the trial, Vice News reported.
Those documents were accessible on the Glynn County Superior Court website as parts of motions filed in the case, Vice New reported. When asked about the issue that could potentially prompt a mistrial, Glynn County Superior Court Clerk Ronald Adams told Vice News on Tuesday: “We are aware of that issue, and the decision about that will be made by the judge."
The documents were still easily accessible as of Sunday morning, the day before the second week of jury selections was set to begin, and seating an impartial jury already hasn’t proven easy.
Twenty-three possible jurors have qualified, just more than a third of the 64 needed before attorneys can work with the court to narrow the jurors down to 12 with four alternates, First Coast News reported. "Brunswick is a small community. Everyone knows everyone," Arbery's aunt,Thea Brooks, told the ABC-affiliated news station. "So, it's hard to find a jury that doesn't or a juror that doesn't have some type of bias towards this case."
Brooks said one possible juror who qualified admitted to working with the elder McMichael and said she has known him for decades. "There was a gentleman [another potential juror] who gave a thumbs up and immediately they struck him, because my brother nodded back as to acknowledge the gentleman who was walking out, and this lady was still able to be on the jury or even be qualified after all of these things," Brooks said. "The gentleman who walked out of the courtroom the other day was an African American man, and this lady is a white lady.
“So, it just kind of makes you wonder, what's really going on in this picture.”
The courtroom where jury proceedings have been playing out have attracted a flood of activists and supporters who traveled to Brunswick from cities throughout the country. Lynne Whitfield, director of election protection at the human rights and justice nonprofit Transformative Justice Coalition, told CNN she is coordinating on-the-ground work outside of the courthouse, work an attorney for Travis McMichael has deemed "an unconscious attempt to influence any jurors."
Chatham Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley asked defense attorneys to draft a motion "walking me through the First Amendment rights you seek to infringe upon and how you intend to do this."
RELATED: 'Cheap and blatant': Accused murderers of Ahmaud Arbery try to make sure jury knows about probation
RELATED: Travis McMichael is actively trying to keep his Confederate vanity plate out of his murder trial
RELATED: Murder trial in Ahmaud Arbery case is not about Arbery's past, judge rules in vital decision
What’s worse is all of those injustices are not even the ones Arbery’s family is talking about in their latest efforts to advocate for justice. Glynn County, the county holding the murder trial, "mistakenly" revealed to potential jurors Arbery's mental health and prior criminal history, which a judge earlier determined would not be a part of the trial, Vice News reported.
Those documents were accessible on the Glynn County Superior Court website as parts of motions filed in the case, Vice New reported. When asked about the issue that could potentially prompt a mistrial, Glynn County Superior Court Clerk Ronald Adams told Vice News on Tuesday: “We are aware of that issue, and the decision about that will be made by the judge."
The documents were still easily accessible as of Sunday morning, the day before the second week of jury selections was set to begin, and seating an impartial jury already hasn’t proven easy.
Twenty-three possible jurors have qualified, just more than a third of the 64 needed before attorneys can work with the court to narrow the jurors down to 12 with four alternates, First Coast News reported. "Brunswick is a small community. Everyone knows everyone," Arbery's aunt,Thea Brooks, told the ABC-affiliated news station. "So, it's hard to find a jury that doesn't or a juror that doesn't have some type of bias towards this case."
Brooks said one possible juror who qualified admitted to working with the elder McMichael and said she has known him for decades. "There was a gentleman [another potential juror] who gave a thumbs up and immediately they struck him, because my brother nodded back as to acknowledge the gentleman who was walking out, and this lady was still able to be on the jury or even be qualified after all of these things," Brooks said. "The gentleman who walked out of the courtroom the other day was an African American man, and this lady is a white lady.
“So, it just kind of makes you wonder, what's really going on in this picture.”
The courtroom where jury proceedings have been playing out have attracted a flood of activists and supporters who traveled to Brunswick from cities throughout the country. Lynne Whitfield, director of election protection at the human rights and justice nonprofit Transformative Justice Coalition, told CNN she is coordinating on-the-ground work outside of the courthouse, work an attorney for Travis McMichael has deemed "an unconscious attempt to influence any jurors."
Chatham Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley asked defense attorneys to draft a motion "walking me through the First Amendment rights you seek to infringe upon and how you intend to do this."
RELATED: 'Cheap and blatant': Accused murderers of Ahmaud Arbery try to make sure jury knows about probation
RELATED: Travis McMichael is actively trying to keep his Confederate vanity plate out of his murder trial
RELATED: Murder trial in Ahmaud Arbery case is not about Arbery's past, judge rules in vital decision