Authorities indicted a former Georgia district attorney on Thursday on charges of violating her oath of office and showing favor to a suspect involved in the shooting murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was jogging and gunned down by three White men.
The former official, Jackie Johnson, who was a former Brunswick Judicial Circuit top prosecutor, allegedly showed favor to 65-year-old retired police officer Greg McMichael. The man was one of the defendants in the case of Arbery and previously worked under Johnson as an investigator.
Former Georgia DA Indicted
The indictment alleged that Johnson recommended another county's prosecutor's appointment to handle the case. The decision was made without the official revealing that she previously sought that prosecutor's assistance in the Arbery investigations. Officials are also accusing the former DA of obstructing the arrest of Greg's son, Travis McMichael.
The third man who was with the McMichaels was William "Roddie" Bryan, who recorded the incident. The father and son chased Arbery in their truck and shot the 25-year-old Black man on Feb. 23, 2020, in Brunswick. It was reported that Travis used a shotgun to shoot the victim three times. CNBC reported.
At the time of the killing, Johnson was the appointed DA but disqualified herself from handling the case as a prosecutor. The grand jury indictment wrote that she took actions that resulted in the delayed arrests of all three suspects.
Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George E. Barnhill handled the case and defended the McMichaels in his letter in April 2020. He told the police captain at the time that the two suspects had probable cause to believe that Arbery was a burglar. However, no further information regarding the allegations was released at the time.
It was not until the video of Arbery's shooting was revealed and shared on social media in early May 2020 that the case received intense scrutiny from the public. After drawing national outrage, the case was later referred to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation shortly after it was released, Yahoo News reported.
Ahmaud Arbery's Shooting Murder Case
Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery's family, called the criminal charges against Johnson were outstanding, calling them, "historic." He said that they rarely observed accountability for a prosecutor who interfered in an investigation.
Johnson was ousted last fall by voters and did not immediately reply to requests for comments regarding the case. While it remains unclear whether or not she has a lawyer, she previously denied any wrongdoing regarding the Arbery shooting case.
An individual found to violate oath for a public officer can be sentenced to one to five years in prison while obstructing and hindering a law enforcement officer is a misdemeanor that can carry a sentence of up to 12 months in jail. The Georgia attorney general's office presented evidence against Johnson to a Glynn County grand jury over several months.
This fall, the three suspects are scheduled to face trial on murder charges and also face federal hate-crime charges, accused of racially profiling Arbery, who was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighborhood in Brunswick, the Washington Post reported.
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