They can request it, and indeed Travis McMichael did, several times, and it was denied. His latest claim was that he feared for his life in the Georgia state prison system. The judge said she had neither the authority nor the inclination to grant the request.
I’m also assuming it somewhat guarantees these guys (I’m trying not to use nouns like "assholes, “racist shitheads,” “piles of pig shit,” and “human garbage” but maybe I should) will never get one breath of free air: if, for whatever reason, their state convictions are overturned they still would have to do their federal time.
Since the Arbery shooting thread was closed by the mods, I’ll add this here:
We’re now 4 years since Arbery was murdered, and 2 years out from the indictment of the DA who attempted to cover up the murder by refusing to prosecute the killers. Her case remains in limbo, with the latest ruling being in November of last year which denied the ex-DA’s motion to dismiss.
Wheels of justice grind awfully slow. Especially for white ex-DAs.
Trial of Georgia DA set to begin on Tuesday.
Jury selection has been completed, and opening arguments should be starting soon.
As a (retired) prosecutor, I’ve been very interested in this case and I am very glad to see it (finally) going to trial. Outside of some very vague facts garnered from the indictment (available here), I’m not sure how much evidence they have and whether said evidence is enough to convict on the charges.
It is extremely rare for prosecutors to face trial for mishandling a criminal prosecution, so this is kind of a big deal. It will be fascinating to see exactly what steps she took in her attempt to avoid having to charge these murderers with murder.
It’s very early (the court predicted a 2 week trial), but from opening statements and the first couple witnesses, it looks like it’s going to be a pretty close case. A big chunk of the beginning was about how Johnson and her office were dismissive of Arbery’s family. They gave them the run-around, didn’t answer any questions, and refused to allow them to see any evidence. While it is certainly evidence of her being a shitty DA, I’m not sure it amounts to misconduct.
More interesting was the responding deputy who told McMichael that he spoke with ex-DA Johnson and that McMichael and his son “would be going home today”. He also indicated that he had no knowledge that Johnson stopped the McMichaels from being arrested.
Like I said, close case.
The last interesting thing (to me, at least) was the prosecution laying the foundation for what I think is the most damning part of the case. Johnson apparently recused herself, called in a prosecutor from a neighboring county (George Barnhill), who, very quickly, decided no arrest would be made and charges would not be filed. As dirty as that is now that the evidence has seen the light of day, I’m not sure it’s a basis for a criminal charge. But what happened after Barnhill declined to press charges was that Johnson referred the case to the Georgia AG, but didn’t tell them at all that Barnhill had reviewed the evidence and not arrested the murderers. So the AG office referred the investigation to … Barnhill. Who, once again, refused to bring charges.
The fact she didn’t inform the AG’s office that Barnhill had already seen the evidence and decided against the arrest is pretty damning. Her defense lawyer indicated that she never knew anything about it, though. He argues that she saw the murder involved McMichael, so she called in Barnhill and never, ever did any other thing about it, and never knew the outcome Barnhill reached. Weird, right?
Especially when there are 16 phone calls after the murder and before charges were brought, between Johnson’s phone and McMichael. We’ll hear more about those later, but all we seem to know is that the calls existed, and some of them lasted for up to half an hour. But it seems we have no idea what was actually said in those calls (which leads me to believe that there is no way the defendant will testify). Defense counsel indicated that they were just calls to the office and that the defendant Johnson didn’t speak to McMichael. There are also calls between Johnson and her staff and Barnhill’s office. But, again, we don’t/won’t? know the substance of those calls.
If anyone thought this was a slam-dunk case, I fear they’re grossly mistaken. There is a lot unknown, and Johnson’s defense counsel seems to rely on the lack of concrete evidence of what Johnson knew/did as a big part of the case.
We will see if Barnhill testifies and if there is anything else the prosecution has that we’ve not heard yet. But it’s a tough case all around.
I just want to say I appreciate these updates and will look forward to reading more.
Welp, it is looking good for Ms Jackson. After the State rested its case (after not calling one detective listed in the indictment, and the othe detective testifying under oath that Johnson did NOT tamper with the police investigation) the judge (rightfully, IMHO) dismissed the obstruction of justice charge. There simply wasn’t any actual evidence presented to support it.
That just left the charge of violating her oath of office.
Which suffered a severe blow when Johnson took the stand in her defense, testified that she recused herself and did nothing to stop any charges being filed. She explained the substance of those 16 phone calls: they were simply about providing the murderers with security due to the death threats after the video leaked. Her testimony also matched that of her replacement DA Barnhill, who testified that he kept the investigation open until he too had to recuse himself. He said, in an amazing CYA move, that he was going to take the case to the grand jury, but he just ran out of time and had to recuse himself.
Finally, she testified that …
Well. I just found out the judge dismissed the remaing charge against her. More later…
This is why I dislike media coverage of legal cases: they don’t understand what is important, and never focus on the legal intricacies that matter.
The presiding judge dismissed the remaining count because, as the press reported: “Judge John R. Turner on Wednesday dismissed the 2021 indictment charging Johnson with violating her oath of office, citing technical errors with its wording.”
So, I have little to no idea what the defense’s winning argument was, and I will likely need to wait for a written ruling to show up to see the legal basis. But, as of now, it seems that all the charges have been dismissed. It will be up to the Georgia AG to decide whether they want to refile the violating oath charge, and then a judge to determine if they can.
Personally, from what I read in the media, refiling seems like a bad choice. The State simply didn’t have the evidence to prove any of the charges behind a reasonable doubt. There is speculation, hints, and (to my mind) absolutely a massive bias by police and DAs, against bringing charges against the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery. Luckily, a video got leaked, non-biased eyes got to see it, and political pressure led to the murderers being charged and convicted.
But I really didnt read any evidence of illegality by Jackie Johnson.
Thanks for the discussion and analysis @Hamlet, really appreciated.