A U.S. state prosecutor in Georgia was indicted Thursday, September 2, for violating her oath of impartiality as a magistrate in the investigation into the death of a black jogger in an altercation with three white men in 2020. Lawsuits which remain very rare in American judicial institutions.
Jackie Johnson, former prosecutor for Glynn County (east of the state) is being prosecuted for having obstructed the investigation into the death of Ahmaud Arbery by preventing the arrest of one of the murder suspects.
“Our services are committed to ensuring that those entrusted with the task of serving do their duty ethically and honestly.”, said Georgia’s justice minister Chris Carr, who had called for an investigation into Mr.me Johnson.
The investigation started when the video was released.
Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was shot dead on February 23, 2020 while running in a residential area of Brunswick, chased by three men who then claimed to have mistaken him for an active burglar in the area. The perpetrator, Travis McMichael, 35, his father Gregory, 65, and William Bryan, 51, who had joined the prosecution, are charged with a racist crime by Georgia’s justice system and must be judged from October 18. They plead not guilty.
According to the indictment, Mr.me Johnson, who denies any breach, reportedly “Shown favor and affection” to Gregory McMichael, who had worked for years as an investigator for his department, and ordered the investigating police not to arrest Travis McMichael.
For more than two months, the local police did not make any arrests and it took the broadcast of a video of the drama, massively relayed on social networks at the beginning of May 2020, for the investigation to really start.
The prosecutions targeting Mme Johnson comes within the context of denouncing the racism that rocked the United States after the death of George Floyd, an African-American killed by a white police officer in May 2020. Agent Derek Chauvin, author of the murder of Mr. Floyd, was sentenced in June 2021 to twenty-two and a half years in prison in June, a heavy sentence that reflects the impact of the drama. Before him, only a dozen American police officers had received prison sentences for murders committed in the course of their duties.
