JURORS IN ARBERY SLAYING TO CONTINUE TALKS AFTER 6 HOURS
BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Jurors in the case of three white men charged with killing Ahmaud Arbery deliberated for about six hours Tuesday without reaching a verdict as they weighed prosecution arguments that the defendants provoked the fatal confrontation against defense attorneys’ insistence that their clients acted in self-defense.
After initially indicating they wanted to work into the evening, the jurors were soon dismissed by the judge with instructions to resume deliberations Wednesday morning.
“We are in the process of working to reach a verdict,” the foreperson told Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with murder and other offenses in Arbery’s killing. After more than two weeks of testimony and closing arguments, the prosecution got the last word because it carries the burden of proving its case.
Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski spent two hours Tuesday morning hammering at defense attorneys’ attempts to blame the 25-year-old Black man for his own death. Defense attorneys said Arbery lashed out violently with his fists to resist a lawful citizen’s arrest.
“You can’t claim self-defense if you are the unjustified aggressor,” Linda Dunikoski told jurors in her final statement. “Who started this?
It wasn’t Ahmaud Arbery.”
Dunikoski said Arbery’s pursuers had “no badge, no uniform, no authority” and were “just some strange guys in a white pickup truck.” And she cited their own words to police immediately after the shooting, when they said they saw Arbery running but were unsure if he had committed a crime.
The prosecutor told jurors someone can only make a “citizen’s arrest” in “emergency situations” where a crime is happening “right then and there.”
Defense attorneys objected to Dunikoski’s explanation of citizen’s arrest because they contend the McMichaels had reason to suspect Arbery had stolen items from the home.
“This is a misstatement of the law and the argument is improper,” Franklin Hogue, an attorney for Greg McMichael, told the judge. “There’s no way we can fix it” before the jury, he said, because defense attorneys finished their closing arguments Monday.