Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of the Ahmaud Arbery case, with what we expect to be day two of general jury selection for the trial of Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and William “Roddy” Bryan on murder and other charges over the death of Ahmaud Arbery on February 23, 2020.
Today we expect the jury selection process, or voir dire, to continue. Yesterday a second group of 20 prospective jurors was subject to general voir dire as a collective group in the morning, and then individual voir dire of those same prospective jurors being questioned individually took place in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, the individual voir dire is broadcast only without sound, so observation of the afternoon’s events did not yield any useful information to those of us observing from afar, and I don’t yet see any reports from local journalists providing useful information from yesterday’s individual voir dire (e.g., how many prospective jurors were dismissed, how many were seated, etc.). As soon as we have some hard figures on that we’ll be sure to share them with you.
One regional news group, First Coast News, is reporting this morning that a third group of 20 prospective jurors was brought into voir dire at 1 pm yesterday, but then promptly sent home and told to come back this morning. My own observation of the muted afternoon proceedings, however, were consistent with the entire afternoon being spent by the parties conduct individual voir dire for some hours, presumably of yesterday morning’s second group of 20 prospective juror.
The same news report suggests that Judge Walmsley is expressing frustration over the slow process of voir dire, and perhaps indicating that jury selection could take even longer than the two weeks initially projected.
In contrast to the muted individual voir dire yesterday afternoon, yesterday morning’s general voir dire of the 20-person group of prospective jurors was broadcast with audio, and you can find our analysis of that proceeding covered in some detail in our post of yesterday, here:
If yesterday’s group of 20 prospective jurors all successfully completed individual voir dire yesterday afternoon, I would expect this morning to start with another group voir dire of a new group of another 20 prospective jurors drawn from the 600 local residents ordered to report to the court for jury selection this week (an additional 400 local residents have been notified that they may also be subject to jury selection for this case, for a total of 1,000 local residents so notified).
Alternatively, if individual voir dire was not completed of yesterday’s group, I’d expect that process to start up again this morning and continue until completed.
Again, as soon as we know, you’ll know. In the meantime, can follow our real time coverage and commenting on the day’s proceedings right here on Legal Insurrection in today’s LIVE blog post for day 3 of the Ahmaud Arbery case trial!
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Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
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