Tensions flare as Jesse Jackson visits

A judge BRUNSWICK, GA. — denied mistrial requests Monday at the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery after defense attorneys claimed jurors were tainted by weeping from the gallery where the slain Black man’s parents sat with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The morning’s testimony was largely disrupted by arguments outside the jury’s presence over Jackson’s appearance. The judge said he found one defense lawyer’s complaints last week about Black pastors to be “reprehensible” and no group would be excluded from his courtroom.

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-old in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times

with a shotgun.

Defense attorney Kevin Gough on Monday asked the judge to make Jackson, the civil rights leader, leave to avoid unfairly influencing the jury.

Gough, an attorney for Bryan, also complained last week when the Rev. Al Sharpton joined Arbery’s mother,

Wanda Cooper-Jones, and father, Marcus Arbery Sr., inside the Glynn County courtroom. Gough told the judge Thursday “we don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here.”

“There is no reason for these prominent icons in the civil rights movement to be here,” Gough said Monday.

“With all due respect, I would suggest, whether intended or not, that inevitably a juror is going to be influenced by their presence in the courtroom.”

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley declined the request. Courtrooms are generally open to the public, although the judge has limited seating in the public gallery because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The court is not going to single out any particular individual or group of individuals as not being allowed into his courtroom as a member of the public,” Walmsley said. “If there is a disruption, you’re welcome to call that to my attention.”

Jackson told reporters outside the courthouse that he came to coastal Brunswick to support justice for Arbery’s family, not in response to the attorney’s previous remarks about Black pastors.

“As the judge said, it was my constitutional right to be there,” Jackson said. “It’s my moral obligation to be there.”

STEPHEN B. MORTON / AP The Rev. Jesse Jackson listens to Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones (right) during the trial of Greg McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, and a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan in Brunswick, Ga. The three are charged with the February 2020 slaying of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery.