Defense attorney in Ahmaud Arbery killing trial: ‘We don’t want any more Black pastors’ in the courtroom

Defense attorney Kevin Gough, who represents one of the white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was shot while jogging in February 2020, objected to the Rev. Al Sharpton sitting in the courtroom with the victim's family, saying, “We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here.”

Video Transcript

KEVIN COUGH: I'm reminded of one matter that I wanted to address. My understanding while I was cross-examining Investigator Lowry yesterday is that the Right Reverend Al Sharpton managed to find his way into the back of the courtroom. I'm guessing he was somehow there at the invitation of the victim's family in this case.

And I have nothing personally against Mr. Sharpton. My concern is that it's one thing for the family to be present. It's another thing to ask for the lawyers to be present. But if we're going to start a precedent, starting yesterday, where we're going to bring high profile members of the African-American community into the courtroom to sit with the family during the trial in the presence of the jury, I believe that's intimidating. And it's an attempt at pressure.

Could be, consciously or unconsciously, an attempt to pressure or influence the jury. To my knowledge, Reverend Al Sharpton have no church in Glynn County, never has, hasn't been here since Elaine Brown ran for mayor, to my knowledge. But we have all kinds of people. We have school board members. We have county commissioners. We have all kinds of pastors in this town, over 100.

And the idea that we're going to be serially bringing these people in to sit with the victim's family, one after another, obviously, there's only so many pastors they can have. And if their pastor is Al Sharpton right now, that's fine. But then that's it. We don't want any more Black pastors coming in here or other-- Jesse Jackson, whoever was in here earlier this week, sitting with the victim's family, trying to influence a jury in this case.

And I'm not saying the state is even aware that Mr. Sharpton was in the courtroom. I certainly wasn't aware of it until last night. But I think the court can understand my concern about bringing people in who really don't have any ties to this case other than political interests. And we want to keep politics out of this case.

So I'm asking the court to take appropriate steps to make sure that the gallery, which is already limited in this case, isn't being utilized for a purpose that could be viewed as improper.

- So let me tell you what I had heard at lunchtime today. And what I had heard yesterday before lunch is that there was going to be-- that the Reverend Al Sharpton was going to be appearing on the courthouse and appearing with the family. I was asked at lunch whether the court had any objection to Reverend Al Sharpton coming into the courtroom. And I said, as a member of the public, there are certain limitations on what we can do here.

What is going on? What I was told was, instead of having someone from the family sitting in the courtroom, that he was going to be sitting there instead of somebody else from the family. And my comment to that was simply, as long as things are not disruptive and it's not a distraction to the jury or anything else going on in the courtroom, so be it. But if it violates the court's rules with regard to the conduct of the trial or violates my orders with respect to how people are to conduct themselves in this courtroom, I will take it up with whomever I need to take it up with.

Well, I will tell you that I noticed him once, and that was it. And the fact that nobody else even noticed that he was in here means that everybody complied with this court's rulings on sitting in this courtroom and listening to the evidence.

I don't hear a motion. And I will tell you this, I'm not going to blanketly exclude members of the public from this courtroom. If individuals, based on the limitations that we have in the courtroom, end up sitting in the courtroom and they can do so, respectful of the court's process and in compliance with this court's orders with regard to the conduct of the trial and they're not a distraction, then I'm not going to do anything about it.

And I did not hear from anyone that there was any distraction whatsoever. In fact what I just heard is nobody was even aware that he was in here except Mr. Sheffield.

- We were aware of it.

- He was not a distraction.

- But not a distraction. So again, I'm not sure what the motion was. Well, and I will point out, there's a large barrier that sits. If you're sitting in the back corner of the courtroom, I'm not even sure the jury would have seen him sitting there. Nobody has brought it to my attention other than what was just presented as an observation by Mr. Cough.

I am not making a blanket rule about attendance in this courtroom. And let's not overstate what's going on here, Mr. Cough, because this will become a distraction if we're going to waste a bunch of time on it. If you weren't even aware of it until later, I'm not sure what we're doing.

- What we're doing is-- the question is not whether the lawyers are aware, but the question is whether the jurors are aware. 10 of the 12 jurors are sitting in the box and see a good part of the gallery. And we do live in a small town. And that's where we're trying this case. And we have 12 jurors who are trying to maintain their anonymity here. Several have expressed concern about it.

When we allow people in this courtroom who are not part of the case but have interest in it, and the jurors can eyeball and recognize that it's the people they know from TV, then that is intimidating. I'm not making a motion at this time. But if it becomes a problem, as it has been a problem for me in other cases in this courtroom, then we're going to bring it back up. And I just don't want anybody to say, we had no idea this was an issue. It's an issue for the Bryant defense.

- No motion before the court then.