Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers, a task that could take days if not weeks in a case becoming synonymous with racial reckoning, experts said this week.
Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers, a task that could take days if not weeks in a case becoming synonymous with racial reckoning, experts said this week. About 1,000 potential jurors have been summoned in the trial of the three men charged with chasing and killing Arbery, then 25, as the Black man jogged through their neighborhood in February 2020. The case, which was not even considered worth investigating until video showed up online two months afterward, has become a rallying point for a slew of murders of innocent Black people in the ensuing months, by both civilians and police. Accused in Arbery’s case are Gregory McMichael,65, and his son Travis McMichael,35, both charged with killing Arbery. William “Roddy” Bryan,52, who caught up with the pair at the end of the confrontation and filmed the shooting itself, also is charged with murder. The elder McMichael had worked in Johnson’s office until 2019. The three were finally arrested in May of last year, with Bryan charged with murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Attorneys want to try the case in Glynn County, where Arbery and the three defendants lived within 2 miles of each other. Potential jurors will be grilled to ascertain whether they will be able to decide the case fairly, based on evidence presented in court, or whether their previous knowledge of the case will prevent their ability to do so.
