SAVANNAH, Ga. — Three years after a former Georgia district attorney was indicted on allegations she interfered with the police investigation into the 2020 murder Ahmaud Arbery, The slow progress of the case through the legal system has come to a standstill. The presiding judge emphasizes that this is temporary.
Jackie Johnson was the state’s top prosecutor in Glynn County in February 2020, when Arbery was chased by three white men in pickup trucks who saw him running into their neighborhood. The 25-year-old Black man died in the street after one of his pursuers shot him with a shotgun.
Johnson turned the case over to an outside prosecutor because the man who led the deadly chase, Greg McMichael, was her former employee. But the Georgia attorney general says she illegally used her office to protect the retired investigator and his son, Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots.
Both McMichaels have already been convicted and sentenced to prison terms in consecutive trials for murder and federal hate crimesThat includes a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, whose cellphone video of the shooting sparked a national outcry over Arbery’s death. A court heard their first professions six months ago.
The criminal misconduct case against Johnson has been in a comparative rut since a grand jury accused her on September 2, 2021, for violating her oath of office and obstructing a police officer.
While the men responsible for Arbery’s death are serving life sentences, the murdered man’s family continues to insist that justice will not be served until Johnson is brought to justice.
“It’s very, very important,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother. “Jackie Johnson was very much part of the problem to begin with.”
Johnson has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. After losing her re-election bid in 2020, she told The Associated Press that she immediately recused herself from the handling of Arbery’s killing because of Greg McMichael’s involvement.
Johnson’s case has stalled because one of her attorneys, Brian Steel, has spent much of the past two years in an Atlanta courtroom defending Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug against charges of extortion and gang formationJury selection in the case took 10 months. Prosecutors began presenting evidence last November and are still calling witnesses.
Judge John R. Turner, who is assigned to Johnson’s case, insists there is nothing he can do but wait.
“If anyone is concerned that this is being swept under the rug, I can assure you that it is not,” Turner told the AP in a telephone interview. “It’s moving at a snail’s pace, but it will eventually move forward.”
After Arbery was killed, Greg McMichael told police that he and his son armed themselves and chased the black man, suspecting he was a fleeing felon. Bryan, who did not know either of the men, made a similar assumption when he saw them walking past his house and joined them in his own truck.
The indictment against Johnson alleges that she told police not to arrest Travis McMichael. It also accuses her of showing “favor and affection” to Greg McMichael by asking George Barnhill, a district attorney in a neighboring judicial circuit, to advise police on how to handle the shooting.
Four days later, the attorney general appointed Barnhill to take over as deputy district attorney. Chris Carr has said he selected Barnhill without knowing that he had already told police he saw no basis for any arrests in connection with Arbery’s death.
Barnhill resigned after a few weeks, but not before sending a letter to the police chief stating that the McMichaels had acted legally and that Arbery had been killed in self-defense.
After Johnson was charged, she reported to jail for a booking and was released without having to post bail. Her attorneys declined to have a formal reading of the charges before a judge, and she has yet to appear in court. The judge denied legal motions from Johnson’s attorneys to dismiss the case last November. Court records show there have been no further developments in the past 10 months.
Johnson’s attorneys, Steel and John Ossick, did not respond to emails and a phone message seeking comment. They have argued in court documents that “not a shred of evidence” that she obstructed the police.
Prosecutors responded with a court filing stating that 16 calls listed between Johnson and Greg McMichael’s phones in the weeks following the shooting.
Two legal experts not involved in the case said there is no deadline for Johnson to stand trial. She has not been jailed, so there is little pressure to speed up her case.
Steel’s extended absence from the Atlanta gang trial likely isn’t the only factor delaying the case, said Atlanta attorney Don Samuel.
Courts are still saddled with a backlog of cases from the COVID-19 lockdowns, he said. And the attorney general’s office has a limited staff of criminal prosecutors with their own busy caseloads.
Samuel also questioned whether prosecutors have a strong case against Johnson. Even if she opposed charging the McMichaels in Arbery’s death, he said, prosecutors have not accused her of taking bribes or similarly blatant corruption.
District attorneys “have an enormous amount of discretion in deciding what cases to prosecute,” Samuel said. “The idea that we’re going to prosecute prosecutors for prosecuting or not prosecuting seems to me to be bordering on the decency.”
Danny Porter, former district attorney for Gwinnett County in metro Atlanta, said prosecutors like Johnson have a legitimate role in advising police on whether to arrest suspects before an investigation is complete.
As for Johnson’s 2020 recommendation that the attorney general replace her with another prosecutor who concluded Arbery’s killing was justified, Porter said, “I don’t think it’s a violation of the law, although it may have angered them.”