Death of Ahmaud Arbery | A black and white trial in Georgia

The racial issue at the heart of the trial

Richard Hétu
Special collaboration

(New York) There are not enough blacks on the jury and there are too many among the spectators.

The racial issue could not be avoided at the trial of the three white men accused of the murder of a young black jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, on February 23, 2020, in a white enclave near Brunswick, a municipality in southern Georgia.

But no one expected her to make both sides doubt the possibility of a fair and impartial verdict after the trial, which opened on November 5.

Glynn County prosecutors were the first to voice that doubt after jury selection. After two and a half weeks of questioning, 64 candidates, including a dozen African Americans, had been shortlisted.

However, eleven whites and only one black were selected to form the jury. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, a similar jury began its deliberations on Tuesday in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old white man who killed two white people on the sidelines of protests against racism and police brutality on August 25, 2020 .

But the racial factor was not tackled head-on during the Kenosha trial. In contrast, Brunswick trial judge Timothy Walmsley recognized at the outset that the composition of the jury appeared to be the result of “intentional discrimination”.

But he said he was powerless to correct this racial imbalance. Why ? Because, he explained to county prosecutors, defense attorneys cited reasons other than race for excluding most potential black jurors.

An unsatisfactory explanation in the eyes of Ben Crump, one of the lawyers for the Arbery family, who denounced “a cynical effort to help these cold-blooded killers escape justice”.

Glynn County, of which Brunswick is the seat, has about 27% Black and 64% White.

Too many “black pastors”

On Monday, defense lawyers in turn put the racial issue back on the table. They asked Judge Walmsley to cancel the trial citing the presence among the spectators of Jesse Jackson, a famous civil rights activist.

But before making that request, Kevin Gough, one of the defense attorneys, begged the judge to get the black Chicago pastor out of the courtroom.

Last week, he made similar comments to complain about the presence of black New York pastor Al Sharpton among onlookers.

“We don’t want other black pastors to come here […] sit down with the victim’s family, to try to influence the jury in this case, ”he said before being rebuffed by the judge.

Kevin Gough and another defense lawyer returned to the charge on Monday, however. They told the judge jurors watched Jesse Jackson alongside Ahmaud Arbery’s mother when she started to cry at a photo of her son presented by a prosecutor.

“Your Honor, I would say, with all due respect to Reverend Jesse Jackson, his approach is no different from bringing in uniformed police officers or prison guards to a small town where a young black man has been charged with assaulting a police or corrections officer, ”said Kevin Gough, asking for the trial to be quashed.

“Mr. Gough, at this point I don’t know exactly what you’re trying to do,” the judge replied, dismissing his request.

“A touch of equity”

Like Kyle Rittenhouse in Wisconsin, the three Georgia defendants – Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed Ahmaud Arbery’s death – have pleaded in self-defense.

Their lawyers say they attempted to carry out a citizen arrest after a neighbor called the police to report Arbery’s presence on the construction site of a house under construction. The three men said they suspected the young black man of burglary in the neighborhood.

Jogging enthusiast Arbery was shot three times, including two in the chest, after being chased in the car for five minutes by the three men and confronted by Travis McMichael, who was holding a gun.

During the confrontation, Arbery punched McMichael and attempted to snatch his gun from him.

On Monday, Jesse Jackson compared the death of Ahmaud Arbery to that of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black teenager killed by whites in Mississippi in 1955 for having, according to some accounts, whistling the passing of a white girl. The pastor, however, said he detected “a bit of fairness” in the jury during the two days he attended the trial.

As for his old fellow traveler, Al Sharpton, he announced his participation Thursday in a march and a demonstration in front of the Brunswick courthouse, where he intends to form “a wall of prayer” with more than 100 black pastors.