A judge has thrown out a felony indictment against former Georgia District Attorney Jackie Johnson, officially ending her trial on allegations that she abused her power to shield the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.
Senior Judge John R. Turner dismissed the 2021 indictment on Wednesday, ruling that technical errors in its wording made it invalid. Just two days earlier, the same judge had acquitted Johnson of a separate misdemeanor charge of obstructing police, stating that prosecutors had failed to present enough evidence for a conviction.
Johnson, who was the top prosecutor in Glynn County at the time of Arbery’s death, had been accused of intervening in the investigation to protect Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son who, along with their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, chased Arbery through their neighborhood in pickup trucks before fatally shooting him.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was unarmed when he was killed on February 23, 2020. His death went unpunished for more than two months until video footage of the shooting leaked online, sparking national outrage and forcing authorities to take action. The McMichaels and Bryan were later convicted of murder and federal hate crimes.
Johnson was voted out of office in November 2020 amid public backlash over her handling of the case. A grand jury indicted her in 2021, accusing her of using her position to protect the McMichaels, including recommending that a neighboring district attorney take over the case without disclosing that he had already advised police the shooting was justified.
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