Four People Have Been Indicted or Convicted in Ahmaud Arbery's Murder. There's Still One Republican DA to Go.

     Most Americans know the story of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man lynched in broad daylight while out for a jog, and his murderers, Travis McMichael, his father Gregory, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan. Travis McMichael would be convicted of nine felony counts related to the murder, Gregory McMichael on eight, and William "Roddie" Bryan on six in a state trial that ended on Thanksgiving 2021. In January 2022, the McMichaels would each be sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years without the possibility of parole while William "Roddie" Bryan would be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. All three men still face felony hate crime charges in federal court.

     One of the most disturbing parts of the crime was the fact that the men were not arrested until May 2020, nearly three months after the murder, when Gregory McMichael and Roddie Bryan released the video in an attempt to clear their names and said video went viral. There are two people to thank for this: the first is Jackie Johnson, who has been indicted on a felony interfering with law enforcement and a misdemeanor obstruction of justice that could put her in prison for up to six years. Immediately after murdering Arbery, Greg McMichael, who had worked from 1995 to 2019 as an investigator for the same office Johnson was DA of for nearly two decades, called her to ask for advice, at which point she instructed officers not to arrest the McMichaels or Roddie Bryan. Thankfully, Jackie Johnson was voted out of office and faces time behind bars, which would end her legal career as a whole. That's not where the story ends, however.

     After Johnson finally recused herself days later, she sent the case to Waycross District Attorney George Barnhill. Barnhill has a long history of violent white supremacy. In 2012, Olivia Pearson, a black city commissioner in Douglas, Georgia, helped a first-time voter by showing her how the new electronic machines worked; Barnhill argued that because this young voter, who happened to be a black woman voting for Barack Obama, was not blind or disabled, she was not entitled to any assistance. He didn't charge her in 2012; instead, he waited until 2016 when there was a new election and charged her with felonies punishable by up to 15 years in prison, done with the express goal of dissuading black voters. She was acquitted on all counts. In 2019, 25-year-old Elester Johnson, a black man, was hit and killed by Ryan Willis Aycock as he rode his bicycle in Douglas. Aycock, who had previously hit another pedestrian in another county, was not charged because he worked as a jailer at the time of the incident.

     Barnhill's son was friends with the McMichaels and worked with Gregory at the DA's office, a clear conflict of interest that didn't dissuade Barnhill from sitting on the case for five weeks and sending a letter to the local police chief saying that he doubted there was enough evidence to pursue a grand jury indictment (maybe because he didn't care to look even the measly amount he would have had to in order to find it) and that it was a clear-cut case of self-defense in which Ahmaud Arbery was the initial aggressor. Barnhill even suggested that Arbery may have shot himself and urged said chief to not arrest the McMichaels or Bryan. Now that they've been convicted of murder and will die in prison, that doesn't look too good for him, and it didn't look good from the start: Barnhill, like Johnson, was ousted from office in 2020. Now that Johnson has been indicted, it's time for Barnhill to be indicted, as well.

     These are two horrible people. Johnson may have been the more blatant case of conflict of interest, but Barnhill is a bona fide white supremacist, just like the McMichaels and Roddie Bryan, and he, too, is a criminal. Tick tock tick tock, Mr. George Barnhill.