Jackie Johnson (via Glynn County Detention Center)
Jackie Johnson, the former Georgia district attorney accused of hindering an investigation into the 2020 hate crime killing of Ahmaud Arbery, failed to have misconduct charges against her dismissed.
Senior Judge John Turner issued the 1-page ruling without elaborating on the reasoning for his decision on Tuesday.
The decision by Turner follows a motion from defense attorneys for Johnson who sought to have the misconduct case tossed due to what they argue is a lack of evidence, The Associated Press reported. The decision has taken almost two years to be handed down.
Johnson was charged by a grand jury in March 2021 though the charges were not publicly revealed until that September. She was accused of letting her “favor and affection” for the men who killed Arbery cloud her role as district attorney, prosecutors alleged.
She was accused of both violating her oath as a public officer and as well obstructing and hindering a law enforcement officer.
Prosecutors say Johnson used her authority as a district attorney in Glynn County to protect Greg McMichael, father of Travis McMichael, the man who pulled the trigger of the shotgun used to kill Arbery.
Greg McMichael was a former employee of Johnson’s and had worked as a chief investigator for Glynn County for 20 years. Notably however, Georgia ABC affiliate WSB reported in May 2020 that Greg McMichael was not actually approved to make arrests for nearly a decade during his tenure. When Johnson learned about the lapse, she allegedly put Greg McMichael on desk duty instead of firing him. He apologized and chalked up the lapse to personal troubles including his wife’s ailing health and his financial woes.
In 2018 — two years before he would hound Arbery in the street with his own son — Greg McMichael failed to get additional required training for the chief investigator spot. This time, then-DA Johnson reportedly stripped Greg McMichael of his badge and his gun, but she didn’t fire him. Instead, it was reported that she moved Greg McMichael to a “staff liaison” job until he retired in June 2018.
Left: Ahmaud Arbery (via Attorney Benjamin Crump). Right: Travis McMichael (L) and his father Gregory McMichael (R) (via Glynn County Detention Center).
Though Johnson’s lawyers have steadily maintained her innocence and insist she did nothing wrong, noting that she recused herself in the Arbery case, prosecutors in Georgia have pointed to 16 phone calls shared between the former district attorney and Greg McMichael after Arbery was killed that alarmed them. One of those calls stretched for some 21 minutes.
Arbery, a Black man, was killed in February 2020 while out for a jog.
Greg and Travis McMichael started chasing the 25-year-old down for several minutes, aggressively trying to corner him with their vehicle after seeing him run past their driveway. Utter strangers before this moment, Arbery had tried to outrun them in every direction but failed. Then, unarmed, hands visible, he tried to defend himself as he was cornered by Travis who had emerged from the car and aimed a Remington shotgun squarely at Arbery’s chest.
After firing one shot there was a brief struggle over the gun and then McMichael shot Arbery again. and then again.
Another man, William “Roddie” Bryan, had filmed the horrific episode on his phone and had participated in the chase, jurors found. The men were found guilty of murder in November 2021 after jurors deliberated for a little more than 24 hours. A few months later, in February 2022, the trio were convicted of federal hate crimes. The father-son duo were sentenced last August to life sentences plus additional time in prison for the hate crime connection. Travis McMichael, then 36, was sentenced to life plus 10 years. His father, then 66, was given life plus 7. Bryan, 52 when he went before the judge in Georgia last summer, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
An attorney for Johnson did not immediately return a request for comment to Law&Crime on Wednesday.
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