A judge Wednesday ended the trial of former Georgia prosecutor accused of using her influence to protect the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery by throwing out the felony indictment used to charge her, abruptly halting the weeklong case before it went to the jury.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/us/a ... index.html
Johnson faced charges of violating her oath of office, a felony, and a misdemeanor count of obstructing police when her trial opened last week. It ended in her favor Wednesday morning without a verdict from the jury that heard five days of testimony from witnesses, including Johnson.
Senior Judge John R. Turner dismissed the oath violation charge after Johnson’s attorneys argued the 2021 indictment was fatally flawed by technical errors and ultimately failed to accuse her of any crimes.
“Frankly, this is a decision I didn’t want to make,” Turner said in court. But he said the defense’s challenge to the indictment “needs to be granted.”
I have been following this case since 2021 and it only seems to reinforce my perception the criminal justice system in America protects their own whether it be corrupt police, judges or lawyers.
Jackie Johnson clearly was friends with the murderer McMichael who worked for her. Following the murder of Arbery Johnson engineered protection for McMichael by interfering in the case so that McMichael, his son and another accomplice were not arrested and misled the public that Arbery had been involved in a string of burglaries in order to justify his killing as self-defence. In reality Arbery was jogging before he was hunted down and killed by McMichael.
While Johnson is now free, I do hope she is not allowed to practice law again. As you can imagine the family of Ahmed Arbery are devastated the trial was not permitted to go to a jury who almost likely would have convicted the former Georgia prosecutor.
Today, 6:52 pm
