Toronto Star

Jury selection begins in trial over killing of Black jogger

Many admit negative feelings toward white defendants after 2020 slaying of man in Georgia

- RUSS BYNUM

BRUNSWICK, GA.—Jury selection got underway Monday for what could be a lengthy effort to find jurors in the trial of three white men charged with fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he was running in their Georgia neighbourh­ood.

The slaying of the 25-year-old Black man sparked a national outcry fuelled by graphic video of the shooting leaked online more than two months after Arbery was killed. Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbour William “Roddie” Bryan are charged with murder and other crimes in Arbery’s death on Feb. 23, 2020, just outside the port city of Brunswick.

With hundreds called, jury selection could last two weeks or more. Arbery’s father said he was praying for an impartial panel and a fair trial, saying Black crime victims too often have been denied justice.

“This is 2021, and it’s time for a change,” Marcus Arbery Sr. told The Associated Press. “We need to be treated equally and get fair justice as human beings, because we’ve been treated wrong so long.”

The first panel of 20 jurors was sworn in and questioned Monday afternoon.

When Judge Timothy Walmsley asked the group if their minds were neutral regarding both sides of the case, only one raised a hand. Asked if they were already leaning toward either side, about half raised their hands to indicate yes.

Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski questioned the group next. “Please raise your card if you would like to serve on this jury,” was her final question.

At first, nobody did. Finally, one young man raised his hand.

Jason Sheffield, one of Travis McMichael’s attorneys, asked the group whether they had any negative feelings about the three defendants. More than half raised their hands.

The judge dismissed three of the group, including a law enforcemen­t officer, for cause before questionin­g the rest individual­ly.

An Air Force veteran and gun owner who was the first to be questioned said he had a negative impression of Greg McMichael, but not the other defendants.

“I got the impression he was stalking,” the man said, saying he based that on news coverage and from seeing the video of the shooting “fewer than five times.”

“From what I observed, he appeared to be the lead dog,” the panel member said of Greg McMichael, a retired investigat­or for the local district attorney’s office. Still, he said he had not made up his mind about Greg McMichael’s innocence or guilt.

The second panelist said he had seen so much about the slaying in the news and on social media that “I’m sick of it.”

He said he shared the video of Arbery’s shooting on social media and discussed the case with his brothers — one of whom was also among the 1,000 people mailed a jury summons in the case.

Another potential juror, a woman who is a retired accountant, said she had negative feelings about the defendants but tried to avoid an opinion on their guilt or innocence. She also expressed misgivings about sitting on the jury.

“How would I feel if I was asked to render a verdict that was unpopular?” she said. “Any verdict, guilty or innocent, is going to be unpopular with some people.”

“Maybe I’d even feel unsafe,” she added.

The court hasn’t identified the race of any of the prospectiv­e jurors.

Arbery’s killing stoked outrage during a period of national protests over racial injustice. More than two months passed before the McMichaels and Bryan were charged and jailed — only after the video of the shooting leaked online and state investigat­ors took over the case from local police.

Prosecutor­s say Arbery was merely jogging when the McMichaels armed themselves with guns and chased him in a pickup truck. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded the nowinfamou­s cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.

Once a jury is seated, the trial itself could take more than two weeks, Glynn County Superior Court Clerk Ronald Adams said.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada