Third day of jury selection sets familiar pattern

Oct. 21—A new set of faces on the third day of jury selection produced a familiar pattern — plenty of Glynn County residents with knowledge of, opinions on, and connections to the highly-publicized killing of a Black man by three White men on a public street in the Satilla Shores neighborhood in February 2020.

The latest panel of 20 prospective jurors in the murder trial of Travis McMicheal, Gregory McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan gathered Wednesday morning in the Jury Assembly Room on the second floor of the Glynn County Courthouse. More than a dozen in this group conceded they have already formed an opinion on Feb. 23, 2020, the day Travis McMichael shot the unarmed Ahmaud Arbery dead after McMichael and his co-defendants pursued the 25-year-old man in pickup trucks as he ran through the neighborhood.

Bryan recorded the deadly conclusion on his cell phone, a video that sparked national outrage and cries of racial injustice when it went viral online in early May of 2020. Georgia Bureau of Investigations agents arrested the three men shortly afterward on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.

Defense attorneys will argue that the killing was a case of self defense in the course of the citizen's arrest of a man they believed to be a burglary suspect. Prosecuting attorney Linda Dunikoski of the Cobb County District Attorney's Office will argue Arbery was senselessly murdered while out for a jog on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Five more in Tuesday's panel indicated they are not impartial in the case, while at least eight potential jurors each raised a hand when a defense attorney asked about harboring negative feelings regarding either of the three defendants. No one raised a hand when asked if they wished to serve on the jury.

Defendants Travis McMichael, 65, Gregory McMichael, 35, and Bryan, 52, sat on one side of the Jury Assembly Room along with their respective defense attorneys while Dunikoski and her assistants sat on the other side. The elder Arbery and other family members also were present during the jury selection proceedings.

These initial rounds of questioning are geared toward acquiring 64 qualified potential jurors. From that number, defense and prosecuting attorneys can each use their allotted strikes to whittle the group down to a jury of 12, plus four alternates.

They still have a long way to go. After the first two days, just eight have qualified. Another seven qualified after Wednesday's round, the judge announced late Wednesday evening. Those advanced during Tuesday's questioning of a single pool of 20 prospective jurors.

These represent only a smattering of 1,000 residents in this community of 85,000 who were initially mailed jury summonses for this case.

Eastern Circuit Court Judge Timothy Walmsley has urged attorneys to start moving things along. Jury selection started Monday morning when 600 of the residents who were summoned for jury duty for this trial were ordered to report. Out of the 600 who actually showed up at the Selden Park gymnasium, just down the road from the courthouse, several panels of 20 prospective jurors each were picked to report to the courthouse for the next phase of the process.

The first panel reported Monday after lunch, with initial plans to process two panels of prospective jurors each day through the rest of the week. But the attorneys never finished individual questioning of Monday's panel, even though the process went into the night. That group remains in limbo.

The next day, Tuesday morning's panel reported to the courthouse as scheduled. Walmsley dismissed the afternoon panel of 20, opting instead to focus the entire day on processing the morning panel. At the end of the day, eight had qualified.

If this process fails to produce 64 qualified prospective jurors by the end of the day Friday, the remaining 400 residents who were initially mailed jury summonses are ordered to report to Selden Park on Monday. The process will begin anew.

Knowledge of the case, familiarity with people who are involved in it, or an opinion about it does not necessarily get a prospective juror dismissed in these rounds. Each prospective juror is given a three-page questionnaire just for the case intended to gauge thoughts on the case itself, racial issues and social media tendencies.

A hardship such as advanced age, illness, or care for a loved one are considered. Folks who hold unflinching opinions at this stage also are liable to be dismissed.

Several prospective jurors from Tuesday's panel knew people directly or indirectly tied to the case. One potential juror knew one of the defendants, two others knew Marcus Arbery Sr., Arbery's father, and two more knew Arbery himself. One prospective juror's son had played sports with Arbery, who was an avid jogger and a former standout linebacker at Brunswick High.

While many indicated support of the Black Lives Matters movement and believed minorities do not get fair treatment from police, none saw racist intent in the old Georgia state flag, which features the Confederate battle flag in one corner. The truck Travis McMichael drove in pursuit of Arbery featured a vanity plate of the old state flag.

Familiarity with the case was evident once again during the during individual questioning, though a couple of prospective jurors believed they would be open to hearing both sides. Such was not the case with the first man interviewed, a longtime production supervisor who has lived in Glynn County since his early teens. After seeing the chilling video, the man said it appeared Arbery was "minding his own business" when he "got interrupted" by the three defendants. He answered flatly when asked by defense attorney Frank Hogue whether he would consider self-defense in the case. "No," he told the attorney who represents the elder McMichael.

Travis McMichael's attorney, Jason Sheffield, noted that the man appeared to give a thumbs-up to Arbery family members upon exiting. He was then dismissed.

However, a former police officer and gun owner told Hogue that he believes citizens sometimes have to take the law into their own hands. "Police ain't always present," said the U.S. Marine, who likened his attendance at a Juneteenth celebration to support of Black Lives Matter. "Sometimes you need good people that exist."

He had seen the video twice but told Dunikoski he could make a conclusion based solely on courtroom evidence. He was sent to rejoin the jury panel.

Another man said he too could judge courtroom evidence objectively. The Jekyll island housekeeper moved here more than a decade ago from the Bronx in New York.

"Do you personally have any opinion about the guilt or innocence of the defendants based on what you've seen in the media?" Dunikoski asked.

"No," he said.

A retired veteran law enforcement officer said he has seen the video and followed the case on television news, but added: "There's a whole lot about this case I don't know."

In his experience, he said, videos do not always tell the whole story behind a case.

He rejoined the panel.

A hairstylist and mother of two became visibly shaken and Walmsley offered her reassurance.

"When people's lives are at stake and somebody got killed it's really hard," she said.

She marked "definitely guilty" on the juror questionnaire, but told attorneys "we don't know all the facts."

She rejoined the panel.

A prospective juror said it upset him that it took more than two months before an arrest was made in the case, which he thinks is cut and dry.

"It was a horrible event," he said. "I've seen the video, I'm very familiar with it. I can't be an impartial juror. No way."

Nevertheless, he rejoined the panel.

A man in his 70s shared similar opinions but added the jury may feel pressured into a guilty verdict for all three defendants and marked a distrust for government on his questionnaire.

"I think what (the defendants) did was unwarranted and they're guilty," he said.

He too rejoined the panel.

A mother of three went to school with Ahmaud Arbery and said her stepfather has fished with the McMichaels. She was dismissed after expressing a prior obligation of caring for children, the youngest of which is an infant. A man and a woman also were granted dismissal requests based on being over 70 years old. A security guard was dismissed after disclosing that he was the sole caregiver for his ailing father. Another juror struggling with a cold was instructed to return next week.

The father whose son had been a sports teammate of Arbery said he could consider the facts objectively, despite writing on his questionnaire that the incident "ended in murder." He too returned to the panel.