Jury selection started on Monday in the federal hate crimes case against three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery when they cornered him for jogging on the site of a home under construction in South Georgia. The facts of the case are pretty straightforward, many of them captured on video. Travis McMichael used a shotgun to fire two deadly shots at Arbery while Travis’ father, Gregory McMichael, a former prosecutorial investigator, was armed in Travis’ pickup truck. Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, recorded the shooting. Whether their actions against Arbery, a Black man, constitute a hate crime is for a federal court to decide.

Of the 52 potential jurors questioned on Monday, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said in statements covered by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) that she hopes 36 jurors will qualify before the defense and prosecution start striking them down.

Updates will be added as the trial continues. Jump below the fold for more information on the trial to date.

Tuesday, Feb 8, 2022 · 6:40:00 PM +00:00 · Lauren Sue

Marcus Arbery told journalist Danae Bucci that a “misunderstanding” between the family and a court victim advocate led them to believe the family couldn’t attend jury selection, but now that it has been cleared up, the family will be present every day. 

The court had already begun the work of eliminating jurors after an estimated 1,000 summonses were sent to residents in the Southern District of Georgia, the AJC reported. That work continued in court with 30 potential jurors qualifying on Monday. One juror who didn’t qualify admitted that she knew Bryan from his work at a local hardware store. She said he had fixed her farm equipment for about six years before he was arrested. “I feel sorry for him,” she reportedly told Wood before admitting she would “possibly” be less impartial on his jury. She was excused before lunch, the AJC reported.

Potential jurors who did qualify were asked not to speak about the case or follow media coverage. “This case may be the subject of media attention, but it must not be the subject of your attention,” Wood said.

All three defendants have already been sentenced to life in prison in the state case against them. The McMichaels had all but pleaded guilty to one federal count against them last week in talks with prosecutors about a plea deal that would allow them to serve the first 30 years of their sentences in federal custody. Wood rejected the deal after hearing from Arbery’s family, who insisted the men serve their sentences in a tougher state facility. “Granting these men their preferred conditions of confinement will defeat me,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told Wood. “It gives them one last chance to spit in my face after murdering my son.”

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It took 74 days for an arrest to be made after Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, in coastal Georgia’s Satilla Shores community. Gregory and Travis McMichael weren’t arrested until May 7, 2020, and Bryan was arrested on May 21, 2020.

Gregory McMichael used to work as an investigator with the very district attorney’s office that would have been responsible for prosecuting him, so the investigation into Arbery’s death started with the now-indicted former Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson recusing herself. “It passed over to the next county, and there, the district attorney failed to disclose his close ties to this family,” Arbery family attorney Lee Merritt said, calling Arbery’s death a “lynching” in May 2020.

The case was next passed to George Barnhill, the district attorney of the Waycross Judicial Circuit, but his son, an assistant district attorney in Johnson’s office, had worked with Gregory McMichael on a prosecution involving Arbery. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in requesting an investigation into the prosecution that Barnhill knew about the conflict and “held onto the case for several more weeks after making this discovery.”

Barnhill told the Glynn County Police Department on Feb. 24, 2020, that “he did not see grounds for the arrest of any of the individuals involved in Mr. Arbery’s death,” Carr said. Barnhill wrote in a letter recusing himself from the case that Arbery family members “are not strangers to the local criminal justice system,” according to the AJC. 

“From best we can tell, Ahmauds [sic] older brother has gone to prison in the past and is currently in the Glynn jail, without bond, awaiting new felony prosecution,” Barnhill wrote. “It also appears a cousin has been prosecuted by DA Johnson’s office.”

Without even knowing about those specifics, Arbery’s mother initiated the push for Barnhill’s recusal, Merritt said. “It’s disrespectful,” Cooper-Jones said during a news conference about the proposed plea deal. “I fought so hard to get these guys in state prison.”

In the federal case against them, the McMichaels and Bryan were each charged with “one count of interference with rights and with one count of attempted kidnapping,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with one count each of using, carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence,” the Justice Department announced on April 28.

Read more of the charges below:

In addition to the hate-crime charges, Count Three alleges that all three defendants attempted to unlawfully seize and confine Arbery by chasing after him in their trucks in an attempt to restrain him, restrict his free movement, corral and detain him against his will, and prevent his escape. Counts Four and Five allege that during the course of the crime of violence charged in Count One, Travis used, carried, brandished, and discharged a Remington shotgun, and Gregory used, carried, and brandished a .357 Magnum revolver.”

Marcus Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery’s father, told journalist Danae Bucci “his family were told they were not allowed to attend court during jury selection,” so they weren’t in court on Friday, when Travis McMichael announced he withdrew his guilty plea, or on Monday. Marcus Arbery attended every day of the state and federal trial otherwise and was in court on Tuesday, Bucci reported.

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