While a white murder suspect recorded, Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, was hunted down and shot to death on Feb. 23, 2020 after a white former cop and his son accused the jogger of trespassing onto a home under construction in South Georgia. In a rare ruling against the three men accused of murdering Arbery, a Georgia judge determined on Monday that Arbery’s past, which consists of two arrests, cannot be used in the murder trial. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley wrote in an order ABC News obtained that evidence of Arbery’s past legal troubles 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.

A Glynn County grand jury indicted former Georgia cop Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William Bryan, who filmed parts of the deadly encounter, in June. The McMichaels submitted a notice to introduce “certain other” acts of evidence last December, according to journalist Kailey Tracy. Arbery was on probation at the time of his killing, having pleaded guilty after facing charges related to trying to steal a TV from Walmart in 2017, ABC News reported.

Arbery’s family attorney, Lee Merritt, said the 25-year-old was unarmed at the time of the shooting in coastal Georgia’s Satilla Shores community. The McMichaels “saw him, got their guns, got in a truck, chased him down, pulled up next to him, shot him at least two times, and killed him right there on the spot,” according to a petition to get the men arrested. 

“When Gregory saw Ahmaud running in his neighborhood, Satilla Shores, a predominately white community, he and his son immediately armed themselves with a shotgun and a 357 magnum, hopped into their pickup truck, chased him down and shot him,” petitioners said on the website. The petition was needed because it took a full 74 days after Arbery’s death, which was ruled a homicide, for an arrest to be made. Two different Georgia district attorney offices are being investigated for “possible prosecutorial misconduct” in the case.

Ignoring completely just what his client is accused of, Jason Sheffield, the attorney for Travis McMichael, issued the kind of statement that sums up nearly everything wrong with trials in America while, oddly enough, advocating for continued adherence to the wrongdoing.  Sheffield reportedly wrote:

Attorney Kevin Gough, who’s representing Bryan, similarly wrote in a statement Tracy obtained: 

Former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter, who isn’t working the case, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the judge’s decision is “a good ruling for the prosecution” but not a necessary one for the state to prove its case. “If that evidence had come in, it would have been damaging but not fatal to the state’s case,” Porter said. “But since it doesn’t come in, it means the prosecution won’t have to play defense.”

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