BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A former prosecutor took the witness stand Tuesday to deny charges that she abused her power to protect the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery nearly five years ago.
Former District Attorney Jackie Johnson told a jury weighing a felony misconduct charge against her that she immediately stepped away from the case because it involved a former employee who initiated the deadly pursuit and whose son fatally shot Arbery in the street. And she denied doing anything to influence George Barnhill, an outside district attorney who quickly advised police not to make any arrests in the case.
“Did you ever ask George Barnhill: This is a friend of mine, he’s a coworker of mine. This is his child. Be sympathetic, find self-defense, anything like that? Did you make any suggestion ever?” defense attorney Brian Steel asked Johnson on the witness stand.
“No,” she replied.
Johnson was the top state prosecutor for coastal Glynn County when Arbery was fatally shot on Feb. 23, 2020. Father and son Greg and Travis Michael armed themselves and set off in a pickup truck after the running Black man, who they wrongly suspected was a burglar. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range.
Greg McMichael had retired months earlier from his longtime job as an investigator for Johnson’s office. About an hour after the shooting, he left a voicemail on Johnson’s cellphone asking her for help.
Johnson testified that she returned Greg McMichael’s call the following evening. She said she had overheard from police officers at the courthouse that Travis McMichael had confronted a burglar and then killed him in a struggle over a shotgun.
“I told him I had heard that day about his son almost got killed and I hoped he and his son were OK.” Johnson testified. She added: “I intentionally did not talk with him about any facts of the case … I told him I hope he understood our office was not going to be involved in the case.”
No one was arrested in Arbery’s death for more than two months, until cellphone video of the shooting leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Both McMichaels and Bryan were later charged and convicted of murder as well as federal hate crimes.
Prosecutors for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office have alleged that Johnson worked behind the scenes to get Barnhill appointed to take over the case, knowing that he had already told police Arbery was shot in self-defense. She’s charged with violating her oath of office, a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.
Johnson testified that she didn’t know what legal advice Barnhill had given to the police at the time he was appointed to take the case.
The prosecutors’ case suffered a blow after resting their case Monday when Senior Judge John R. Turner ordered Johnson acquitted of a second charge that she obstructed police investigating Arbery’s death. Turner granted a rare directed verdict after concluding there was “not one scintilla of evidence” to support that charge.
