Race was a major subplot throughout the Ahmaud Arbery case, from the young Black jogger’s shooting in 2020 to the trial the following year of three white men charged, and eventually convicted, of killing him.
Now, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots while trying to apprehend Arbery for a robbery he didn’t commit, is seeking a new trial based on remarks from a juror that the defense claims prove bias against his client.
Pete Donaldson, who represents Travis McMichael, told Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley at a hearing Thursday he intends to present testimony showing juror No. 380 concealed that bias during jury selection.
The request for a new trial was prompted by an interview conducted by a private investigator, hired by the defense, in 2022, Donaldson said. The juror told the investigator then that he prayed after he was chosen as the only Black member of the panel.
“I felt like the weight of the whole Black race was on my shoulders,” Donaldson quoted the juror as saying.
On Thursday Donaldson further questioned the juror, asking about his decision to purchase a hot dog in the vicinity of a rally that was held near the courthouse in honor of Arbery. Juror no. 380 insisted he left soon after his purchase and did not mislead the judge and attorneys during jury selection.
“I felt sorry for the family. After court started, I felt sorry for both sides,” the juror said on the witness stand. “I wanted to help for the truth to come out, right from wrong,” he added.
Walmsley, who presided over the 2021 criminal trial, did not a make decision on Thursday. However, defense attorneys and the prosecution will have about a month leading up to the judge’s decision to file legal briefs summing up their arguments.
Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., spoke to reporters outside the courthouse, calling the defense’s efforts for a new trial “very weak.”
“They were throwing everything to the wall, and nothing will stick,” he said.
The Brunswick, Georgia, jury took just one day to find Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, and an accomplice, William “Roddie” Bryan, guilty on varying charges including malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault. The trio were later convicted and sentenced on federal hate crime charges.
Travis McMichael claimed that he acted in self-defense when he shot Arbery at close range with a shotgun after the 25-year-old had resisted a citizen’s arrest and attacked him. Prosecutors said Arbery, unarmed and on foot, was the one fighting for his life after he was chased down by the McMichaels, each wielding guns.
Greg McMichael, a former investigator with the local district attorney’s office, claimed Arbery had just burglarized a nearby home under construction, though when he died he had no stolen items in his possession.
Bryan, who lived in the same, mostly white neighborhood, joined in their pursuit of Arbery. From his car, Bryan filmed the confrontation between the McMichaels and Arbery, and that dramatic footage changed the course of the investigation.
Even though local investigators had a copy of the cellphone video for three months, criminal charges seemed unlikely. Greg McMichael had worked for Brunswick County District Attorney Jackie Johnson for several years, and even though she recused herself from the case, the Georgia Attorney General’s Office found that she illegally used her position to try to protect her former investigator and his son.
The criminal misconduct case against Johnson, who was voted out of office in 2020, is still pending. She denies any wrongdoing.
State investigators took over the case once the video shot by Bryan went viral in May 2020. Within a week the McMichaels and Bryan were all arrested and charged. Ironically, the defendants released the video to a local radio station believing it would help prove their innocence.
The video helped propel the case into the national consciousness, coming within months of other high-profile police killings of Black people, including George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer and the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in her home by Louisville, Kentucky, police. Arbery’s death became a key reference point in the movement for social justice and police reform.
⚠️ graphic content but this needs to be shared!!!! This is the Arbery shooting that happened in my hometown, where two racists men shot and killed an unarmed man for jogging. These men are still walking around town with no consequences. #IRunwithAhmaud #irunwithmaud pic.twitter.com/PSP6SCaedW
— Caroline Renee (@carollewxo) May 5, 2020
Jerry Chappell, who represents Greg McMichael, said he backed Donaldson’s effort to challenge the juror’s bias. Meanwhile, Bryan’s new lawyer, Rodney Zell, argued Thursday that his client deserved a new trial due to his former attorney’s incompetence.
Allowing Bryan to be interviewed twice by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was especially crippling, Zell said. His statement about how he and the McMichaels positioned their pickups to prevent Arbery’s escape figured heavily in the prosecution’s case.
Bryan’s former lawyer, Kevin Gough, acknowledged Thursday he made “a gamble in cooperating with the GBI” in hopes they would go easy on his client. In retrospect, Bryan’s statements “have not looked so good.”
“There was never a legally binding agreement for Mr. Bryan’s cooperation,” Gough said. “And Mr. Bryan was very aware of that.”
Gough made headlines when he objected to the presence of “high-profile members of the African-American community,” such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, in the courtroom.
“I believe that’s intimidating and it’s an attempt to pressure — could be consciously or unconsciously — an attempt to pressure or influence the jury,” Gough said.
