Ahmaud Arbery trial: Jury selection challenged by small town connections

As jury selection drags into its second week in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery's murder, the difficulties of prosecuting a major case in a small town is becoming clear.

One potential juror sometimes enjoyed a Southern-style oyster roast and game of cards with the victim’s father. Another said her stepfather goes fly-fishing with two of the defendants. Others said they had seen the victim jogging around town or lifting weights in a neighbor’s driveway.

As jury selection drags into its second week in the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who went for a run in a mostly white neighborhood, one difficulty of prosecuting a major case in a small town is becoming clear: everyone seems to know everybody in Georgia’s Glynn County.

Judge Timothy Walmsley, prosecutors and the defense lawyers are trying to seat 12 jurors and four alternates who can weigh evidence without being swayed by bias in the trial at Glynn County Superior Court in Brunswick, a coastal city home to just 16,000 people.

Jury summonses went out to 1,000 people across Glynn County, population 85,000, about two-thirds white. Dozens of potential jurors have been questioned since the trial began on Oct. 18, identified only by numbers after the judge promised anonymity.

None of the 12 potential jurors questioned in court on the first day appeared to be acquainted with any of the parties, but the issue quickly became apparent soon after.

A woman who works in a hospital told the court her husband and father-in-law know William “Roddie” Bryan, one of the three defendants facing charges that include murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment.

Bryan helped give chase to Arbery down a road in the suburb of Satilla Shores in February 2020 and used his cellphone to film the encounter in which Arbery was cornered and then shot to death.

Another potential juror said he knew Gregory McMichael, Bryan’s neighbor, who led the chase in a pick-up truck with his son, Travis McMichael, in what they say was an attempt to make a citizen’s arrest.