Ahmaud Arbery Slaying Trial Goes to Jury After Defense Attorney Renews Mistrial Motion By Citing ‘Lynching’ Threat from New Black Panthers ‘Mob’ Outside Courthouse

The jury in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial will continue deliberations Wednesday in a case entwined with racial tensions.

Three white men face nine charges for killing the 25-year-old Black man near Brunswick, Georgia. Arbery’s death led to a reform of the state’s archaic citizen’s arrest law, which was created in 1863 to punish Black Georgians.

Civil rights advocates said Arbery’s shooting death in broad daylight in a mostly white neighborhood was a modern-day lynching. A defense attorney for one of the men accused in the slaying said Black pastors and protestors attending the trial are the real mob in his client’s lynching. Legal experts said the defense attorneys are using racist dog whistles to initiate a hung jury in the case.

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“I certainly don’t mean to suggest that Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or any other pastor belong to a mob, but at the same time, we are talking about organized behavior by whoever outside the courthouse leading up to this case,” Kevin Gough, who represents defendant William “Roddie” Bryan, told the trial judge as he raised a motion for a mistrial on Nov. 15.

That motiion was denied, but by Friday, Nov. 19, Gough renewed the motion for mistrial, telling Glynn County Superior Court Judge Judge Timothy Walmsley, “This is what a public lynching looks like in the 21st century, with all due respect.”

The panel of 11 white jurors and one Black juror heard closing arguments from the state before six hours of deliberations Tuesday. Prosecuting attorney Linda Dunikoski said Arbery was jogging when he was cornered by Bryan and father-and-son duo Gregory and Travis McMichael.

Source: Ahmaud Arbery Slaying Trial Goes to Jury After Defense Attorney Renews Mistrial Motion By Citing ‘Lynching’ Threat from New Black Panthers ‘Mob’ Outside Courthouse