A senior Glynn County police officer testified Thursday that Jackie Johnson did not try to influence police decisions about the men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery, potentially undercutting part of the prosecution’s case against the former Brunswick-circuit district attorney.
Johnson is on trial in Glynn County on two charges that she violated her oath of office and hindered a police investigation of the February 2020 killing. Police and prosecutors initially dismissed video evidence showing the murder, and it took more than two months and the intervention of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to arrest the three men who were subsequently convicted for racially motivated murder.
Prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s office allege that Johnson’s actions improperly influenced the investigation to benefit her former employee and longtime chief investigator, Greg McMichael, who along with his son Travis and William “Roddie” Bryan are now serving life sentences for those crimes.
The prosecution included Glynn County Assistant Police Chief Stephanie Oliver on their witness list to strengthen its case for the first charge: that Johnson violated her oath of office by hand-picking a friendly prosecutor to oversee the Arbery case when she recused herself due to conflict of interest with one of the suspects.
Oliver’s testimony, however, may have helped the defense on the second charge that accuses Johnson of hindering a police investigation by using her relationships with the local law enforcement to prevent the killers from initially being detained.
Johnson’s 2021 indictment states that the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney “knowingly and willfully” hindered Oliver and another Glynn County Police officer in their investigation by “directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest.”
When asked by Johnson’s defense attorney, Brian Steel, Oliver said that wasn’t true.
“I never had any interaction with Ms. Johnson in this case,” Oliver testified. She answered further questions stating that Johnson did not influence or direct her at all.
This admission reveals some of the tensions in the Johnson case, which has been widely publicized since Arbery’s killing nearly five years ago, yet little evidence has made its way to the public.
Prosecutor John Fowler, meanwhile, asked questions of Oliver about how Johnson selected the district attorney in the neighboring judicial circuit to take on the Arbery investigation. The prosecution alleges that Johnson’s actions were improper and were meant to influence the outcome in favor of the killers.
Oliver’s answers related to the first charge that Johnson faces.
Oliver testified that she and a GCPD investigator met with that second district attorney, George Barnhill, the day after Arbery’s murder. Other witnesses testified that Johnson directed Glynn County Police to talk to Barnhill due to her conflict with the McMichaels.
This meeting occurred before Johnson officially removed herself from the case, which is at the heart of what prosecutors are alleging was unlawful.
At the Feb. 24, 2020, meeting, Barnhill watched the video recording showing how the McMichaels and Bryan chased and killed Arbery. Barnhill told the GCPD officers “that there weren’t any laws broken and it was justifiable,” according to Oliver’s testimony.
The video, however, was crucial to the eventual prosecution and conviction of the three men.
Defense lawyers have refuted the notion that Johnson had any influence over the decision to not prosecute the men by arguing that the GCPD never considered the McMichaels and Bryan as suspects.
You must be logged in to post a comment.