Judge in Ahmaud Arbery hate crime trial against three men convicted of killing him will summon 1,000 potential jurors from 43 counties because 'finding an impartial jury will be difficult'
- Georgia Federal Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, 58, said finding an impartial jury will be difficult after highly publicized state trial
- Gregory and Travis McMicheal and William Brian Jr have been indicted on federal hate crimes for the murder of Arbery
- The three men are scheduled to be sentenced of the state conviction on Jan. 7, a month before jury selection in the federal case
- Arbery's father agrees with reaching a larger group because 'the evidence is overwhelming'
A Georgia federal judge said Monday that she would look high and low, pulling the names of 1,000 people from 43 different counties, to find impartial jurors for the upcoming hate crimes trial against three men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery.
Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William Brian Jr were found a guilty of murder in state court on November 23 by a panel of 11 white jurors and one black juror. In compiling that jury pool, 1,000 people in the mostly-white Glynn County were called.
The three men will now stand trial in federal court on Feb. 7 for hate charges that they targeted Arbery because of his skin color.
Lawyers for both sides argued that with the extremely close press scrutiny that the first trial got that it will be harder to find people who have not heard and formed an opinion of the case.
'I think the reasons set forth on both sides are extremely valid,' Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said, adding: 'It's a case that has received so much pretrial publicity.'
Federal prosecutors and the defense lawyers in the federal case have said they hope selecting a jury from a wider area will help avoid the slow-paced grind that made jury selection last two-and-a-half weeks before the state trial could begin.
Arbery, 25, had been jogging through the McMichael's neighborhood when they started to follow him, ultimately leading to his death
Pictured: Travis McMichael (left), his father Gregory McMichael (center) and their neighbor William Bryan Jr (right)
Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William Brian Jr were found a guilty of murder in state court on November 23 by a panel of 11 white jurors and one black juror. In compiling that jury pool, 1,000 people in the mostly-white Glynn County were called. Pictured: The moment Arbery was shot by Travis McMichael
The state's jury pool in the murder trial was drawn exclusively from Glynn County, where Arbery´s death had dominated news reports and social media feeds.
Most potential jurors arrived at the courthouse already knowing basic facts about the case and many were dismissed for having strong opinions.
The judge agreed with attorneys to send a 14-page questionnaire to potential jurors along with their jury duty notices. Attorneys will be able to review them before jury selection begins.
The judge said she plans to have approximately 1,000 jury duty notices and questionnaires mailed to people living throughout the court's Southern District of Georgia, which covers 43 of Georgia's 159 counties.
The area has a population of about 1.6 million people, with Savannah and Augusta being its largest cities.
Its farthest community from the courthouse is rural Wilkes County, located more than 210 miles (338 kilometers) north of Brunswick.
The state trial also drew from a pool of 1000 Georgians, however only one Black juror sat on the panel.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley found that there was 'intentional discrimination' by the defense team in jury selection, but state law did not permit him to change the make-up.
A Glynn County judge is scheduled sentenced the three men on January 7, exactly a month before the federal trial begins.
Their murder convictions carry a mandatory life sentence.
The question for the judge is whether they will serve life in prison with or without a chance of parole.
Bryan recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting the 25-year-old Black man with a shotgun after Arbery spent several minutes running as the three men chased him in pickup trucks.
Now the McMichaels and Bryan face hate crime charges at the federal level that allege they violated Arbery´s civil rights, unjustly pursuing and threatening him on a public street, because he was Black.
The judge said Monday she plans to keep the federal trial in Brunswick, noting the families of Arbery and the defendants live there, as do many of the witnesses being called to testify.
Typically in a federal trial, a jury would be pulled from Glynn County, which includes Brunswick, and six neighboring counties.
Arbery's father, Marcus Arbery Sr., told reporters outside the courthouse he's fine with a jury coming from a wider area of the state.
'It don't matter, because the evidence is overwhelming,' he said.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and jumped in a pickup truck after they spotted Arbery running past their home on a Sunday afternoon last year.
Ahmaud Arbery's father Marcus Arbery, center, is removed from the courtroom after Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley read the jury's verdict the trial of Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021, in the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Ga. The three defendants were found guilty
Three white men were convicted of murder for chasing and shooting Ahmaud Arbery as he ran in their Georgia neighborhood last year. The jury rejected their self-defense claim
They later told police they suspected he was a burglar, though they did not see him committing any crimes.
Bryan joined the chase in his own truck, telling police he used the vehicle to force Arbery into a ditch and cut off his escape from the subdivision.
He used his cellphone to record video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery as he tried to run around the McMichael´s idling truck.
Travis McMichael testified he shot Arbery in self-defense after the running man attacked him and tried to grab his gun. Defense attorneys said the three men had reasonable grounds to suspect Arbery was a criminal and wanted only to detain him until police could arrive.
At the time of his death, Arbery had enrolled at a technical college and was preparing to study to become an electrician like his uncles.
