6:35 PM: Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski and the judge say they have 59 jurors. She asks whether striking a jury might come Wednesday. Judge Walmsley says from the looks of things, “We need to prepare for the possibility.” He says he won’t rush it, though, so needs to think it through. Doesn’t want to call jurors in on Wednesday and then say, “See you Thursday” because it’s disruptive.

Kevin Gough says he’s uncomfortable with the idea of opening statements taking place when so many legal issues, including charge issues, remain unsettled. He’d like to start Thursday and use Wednesday for working. Walmsley says he doesn’t want them to think he’s talking about striking a jury and jumping into openings right away. He hopes they have enough people in the pool to pick a jury no later than Wednesday, likely in the morning, maybe into the afternoon, leaving some hours that day to work through issues.

“I realize there are some open matters that need to be addressed,” he says. “No, I don’t foresee the morning that we pick the panel being the day we do openings. I think there’s too many legal issues to work through at this point.” He says he knows lawyers also want to work through IT issues so they’re not fumbling around.

NOTE: Reporters checked with the judge. He clarified that there ARE 60 jurors in the pool, not 59.

6:25 PM: They only need four more. Today’s panel of 17 potential jurors yielded six more for the murder trial’s jury pool: Jurors 351, 352, 364, 368, 372, and 268. That’s a total of 60; lawyers have said they’re seeking 64 so they can strike a panel of 12 jurors and four alternates. No word yet on whether the judge is considering adding more alternates, as defense attorney Gough suggested this morning.

Court resumes at 8:30 Tuesday morning.

6:05 PM: Juror #268 is an advocate for greater gun control measures, though decades ago he sometimes carried a gun himself.

“I just think America is becoming a Wild West country,” he said.

He said he’s read a lot about the case in the news, and it’s difficult to be completely impartial.

“I understand when accused that you are innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “If I were on the jury, I would certainly make an attempt to be impartial.”

He told ADA Dunikoski he had negative opinions of all three defendants.

“I have seen the video of the shooting,” he said of Travis McMichael. “I think very commonly anyone would have a negative opinion about that.”

Of Greg McMichael: “I think he’s older and probably should have had a little calmer approach to what was happening.”

Of Roddie Bryan: “Why would he film that if he was attempting to help his neighbors?”

5:25 PM: Juror #372 tells Greg McMichael’s attorney Laura Hogue, in response to her question, that she herself had wondered whether race played a role in the deadly pursuit. Juror #372 is not from the South, and notes, “I’ve heard and seen just quite a bit of racism in general” since moving to Brunswick. “That did play into my head because it is a distinct white-vs-Black in this case.”

Hogue asked if that would affect how she would deliberate.

“I don’t know all the facts of the case,” No. 372 said. “I wouldn’t automatically assume why they chose to do something.”

Juror #374 was struck for cause because she and Ahmaud Arbery took classes together and graduated high school together.

Linda Dunikoski asked if she could be fair and impartial.

“Nope,” she said, “just because I knew him.”

4:50 PM: Juror #368 said he works near the neighborhood where the shooting happened, and looked for more information after the video of Ahmaud Arbery’s fatal shooting was released. He calls the video “pretty inconclusive.”

He said he probably watched the video three times in one sitting. Prosecutor Paul Camarillo asked why he described it as “inconclusive.”

“I just remember my wife and I saying there must a lot more that we can’t see here,” No. 368 said.

He said he could be fair and impartial if chosen to serve on the juror, and that he’s formed no opinions on whether the McMichaels and Bryan are innocent or guilty.

I can’t tell from what happened,” he said, referring to the video. “I saw two people with their hands on the gun. I didn’t know how that came about.”

He said he believes rallies and protests held in Arbery’s memory have been overblown, particularly those in which Arbery’s family and supporters have returned to the neighborhood where he was killed.

He said he drove past the subdivision during one such protest and heard people chanting: “Whitey has to die!”

“I see racism. I still see some here and there,” No. 368 said. “I usually just try to ignore it.”

He said it could be “a rough time” for him to serve as a juror if he’s forced to wear a mask, since he wasn’t required to in his job during the pandemic until the last couple of months. He says when he does so, “I get very warm, very heated,” he said.

Defense lawyers had no questions for him.

4:25 PM: Juror #364 said she doesn’t know much about the shooting.

“Basically I didn’t even put their names into my head until today,” she said of the defendants, adding: “I just knew two had the same last name.”

Asked by prosecutor Paul Camarillo if she had any opinions about whether the McMichaels or Bryan are guilty or innocent, she said, “Not actually because I don’t know any details. I just know the basics of what I heard when it originally happened.” Says she “can’t think of any” reason she can’t be fair and impartial.

Camarillo mentions she didn’t raise her hand when asked for people 70 and older who didn’t want to serve on the jury.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “I think it’s probably my duty to do it. That doesn’t mean I want to.”

4:00 Juror #361 said he’s a deer hunter and was struck by something a fellow hunter told him after the video of Arbery’s slaying became public.

“The way he put it was, ‘Same thing we do in the woods on Saturday,’” he said. “It immediately registered as a negative thing.”

Asked if he thought Travis McMichael was guilty or innocent, No. 361 said he was “leaning more toward guilty.” He said he felt the same about the other two defendants.

He’s met Marcus Arbery, Sr., but they don’t know each other well. He tells prosecutor Paul Camarillo he still listen impartially to the trial evidence and consider a defense of self-defense. Yet he backed off that when asked about self-defense by Jason Sheffield, Travis McMichael’s lawyer. Sheffield asked #361 about a questionnaire answer: “As last resort after trying to flee, Mr. Arbery confronted the young McMichael. I think in that final interaction, he felt like he had no choice but to try and escape by any means,” the prospective juror wrote.

Sheffield asked him based on that if he could fairly consider Travis using self-defense.

“I don’t think I could after what I’ve seen or known of the pursuit,” said Juror #361.

He said he’s got a strong opinion that the McMichaels used personal connections to avoid arrest when the shooting first happened. He was referring to Greg McMichael’s former job as an investigator for the local district attorney.

He also said he thinks race played a role in the shooting.

“I don’t think the events would have occurred the same way ... had race not been a factor,” he said.

2:55 PM: Juror #357 was struck for cause after the judge found court records that appeared to show she was ineligible to serve because of a felony conviction. She said she was arrested for a felony drug offense almost 15 years ago at age 40, pleaded guilty, and has since completed her probation and had her rights restored, allowing her to serve on the jury.

“What did you do to get your rights restored?” Judge Timothy Walmsley asked.

“I don’t remember doing anything,” she replied. She said she had voted in 2020 with no problem.

She said she thinks the criminal justice system doesn’t treat Black people the same as whites.

“I think I find a lot of guilt before innocence as opposed to innocence before guilt,” she said.

She said she has seen the video “maybe once, bits and pieces,” and heard coworkers talking about Arbery’s death, but hasn’t engaged in those conversations.

Asked by Bob Rubin if she had an opinion on what role race may have played in the shooting, she said: “No, sir.”

Juror 356, a young Black man who’d known Arbery since first grade, is struck for cause by agreement of all parties based on his close ties to Arbery.

Judge Walmsley has struck 339 for cause, because of concerns she is biased.

No. 342 is struck for cause. Over 70 years old and doesn’t wish to serve.

1:50 PM: Greg McMichael’s lawyer Frank Hogue asks Juror #353 if his mind’s firmly made up that Ahmaud Arbery’s killing wasn’t murder.

“I would have to see probably some very profound, very obvious, very undeniable evidence or information for me to comfortably consider murder,” 353 says. “Someone was killed or whatever. But I feel both parties contributed to that outcome. I don’t see me using the term ‘murder’ to say what happened.”

“So you are open or you’re not open to having your opinion changed on that subject of murder?” asks Franklin Hogue.

“i’d say it’d be very unlikely that I’d change my mind on that point. But i don’t know if I could turn around and say murder,” says #353.

“Impossible?”

“I’d say very small percentage or highly unlikely that I’d turn around from what I’ve seen to murder,” #353 says.

“So you’re saying there is a chance?”

Juror 353 tells Roddie Bryan’s lawyer that if selected for the jury, he’d follow the law as instructed by the judge.

When #353 was sent back to join the panel, prosecutor Linda Dunikoski asked the judge if she she should make her motion to strike now. The judge said, “I have a feeling it’s going to take awhile,” so he says they’ll move on to the next person.

1:25 PM: The judge is back on the bench.

12:15 PM: Since getting his jury summons, Juror #353 has researched the case, talked to coworkers and gotten their opinions, and driven to Satilla Shores “to get kind of a lay of the land.” He says he believes Ahmaud Arbery’s death resulted from an “unplanned escalation” by the defendants and Arbery, and “should have been avoided.” He said he doesn’t believe any of them had any intent to kill Arbery, and for him, the “sticking point” is that the three men are charged with murder. Asked if his opinion is fixed, No. 353 tells prosecutor Linda Dunikoski, “It’s pretty fixed. There would have to be some really strong evidence otherwise.”

His opinion of Travis McMichael is that he “had no intention of anything like what actually happened....Maybe he should not have done what his father instructed him to do as far as getting the gun. That was not the intent to leave and use the guns for more than trying to hold this individual until the police got there.” He notes Greg McMichael “didn’t even shoot,” and says as for Roddie Bryan, “all he had was a cellphone.”

Juror #353 tells the State he’s watched the #AhmaudArbery chase and shooting video “probably 40 or 50 times,” adding, “If you look at it more often, there’s more to it than you see the first time.”

The defense teams will question #353 when they return from lunch ~1:15 PM.

11:55 AM: Juror #352 said he believes he can fairly, impartially weigh the case. He says he’s seen the video of the Arbery shooting once, and listened to some podcasts in which the case was discussed, but doesn’t have a strong opinion.

“I would just say that they’re in the wrong, but I don’t think they’re as guilty of evil and such as some people are saying,” No. 352 said of the defendants.

He said he doesn’t agree with things he read that Arbery was “lynched.”

“I don’t believe that they were lynching, quote-unquote,” he said of the defendants.

He said he can consider self-defense and citizen’s arrest as possible defenses.

Asked to elaborate by Travis McMichael lawyer Jason Sheffield, No. 352 said: “I don’t believe they intentionally went out that day to kill Ahmaud Arbery. But I believe they still acted poorly. They shouldn’t have shot him.”

He tells prosecutor Linda Dunikoski that the podcasts he’d heard that mentioned the case may have been Joe Rogan: “I’d say he’s less biased than most.”

11:45 AM: Juror #351 suspects the media hasn’t been fair to the defendants. She watches little news, but has heard a lot of talk about the case.

She said she has some concerns about people’s safety and well being in the community.

“Not really necessarily my safety, but maybe the safety of the people involved in the case or our county itself [if] say, someone gets off,” she said.

“If something goes some way that some person doesn’t want it to, is their life going to be threatened,” she said, clarifying that she was referring to the defendants.

Juror #351 said at one point, she had made a social media post supporting racial justice after Ahmaud Arbery’s death.

“I think I ended up deleting it maybe the same day,” she said. “I didn’t even know if that was own opinion. I was just doing it for the sake of my friends. I don’t even know if I’m making sense.”

10:55 AM: Juror #344 is also struck for a fixed opinion--that the defendants are innocent. “I don’t see that they done anything wrong,” he said. “I think they done it in self-defense.”

Asked if his opinion was fixed he said: “I made up my mind about it.”

10:45 AM: Juror #339 said on her questionnaire, “I believe this is murder.” She believes the fatal chase was racially-motivated.

“What happened to him is a tragedy that shouldn’t happen again,” she said of Ahmaud Arbery’s shooting. Yet she also expressed a willingness to change her mind.

“Once I listen to the facts of the case, then I’m open to consider the facts of the case,” she said. She says after seeing the defendants in person in the courtroom she was able to keep an open mind.

“I’d like to know basically their frame of mind, I guess, and see what made them act the way they did on that day,” she said. “It can change, I guess. I just honestly don’t know.”

She said she wasn’t aware she would see the McMichaels and Bryan in the courtroom when she reported for jury duty.

“All that you see in the media is their mugshots,” she said. “They’re coming in here and you can see that they’ve cleaned up. You can see the look in their eyes, of they look angry or remorseful.”

No. 339 told prosecutor Linda Dunikoski she believed the shooting was racially motivate because she watched the pretrial hearing during which GBI agent Richard Dial testified that Roddie Bryan told investigators he heard Travis McMichael use the N-word while standing over Arbery after the shooting.

“I honestly can’t remember what was given at the preliminary hearing except for that last bit.”

She said she would be open to considering defenses based on self-defense or citizen’s arrest: “If the law says what they did was right by the law, you have to go by that.” Juror #339 says of the two-month delay in the defendants’ arrest, “It took way too long. I think that Glynn County messed up and they should have at least investigated a little more.”

She was struck for cause. So was a juror over 70 who doesn’t want to serve.

10:30 AM: The jury pool of 55 has dropped to 54. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley strikes Juror #5, who had been qualified on Friday from Panel #1, after reconsidering trial logistics and determining that he cannot realistically guarantee her that court will be done each day at 5:30 to accommodate her childcare needs. This brings number of people qualified as potential jurors to 54.

Roddie Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough wonders if four alternates will be enough. He asks the judge to consider adding more.

©2021 Cox Media Group