‘Judge’s hands are tied’: Jackie Johnson case turns 3 years old with no trial date set

Delays in the criminal case against Jackie Johnson, accused of abusing her role as district attorney for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit to shield the killers of Ahmaud Arbery, will stretch into the third year next week, with no trial date and little court activity to speak of.

The workload of Johnson’s defense attorney, Brian Steel, in Atlanta in the longest running trial in Georgia history has made it logistically impossible to schedule proceedings in the Brunswick case , according to Steel’s office and court officials.

Steel is the attorney of record for rapper Young Thug in the Fulton County racketeering case and he is physically in court in Atlanta every day.

“There’s legal conflicts that prevent him from taking action in other cases where his presence is needed, so he really needs to focus on the client that he’s currently on trial for,” Colette Steel, Brian Steel’s wife and an attorney, told The Current Wednesday.

The delays have little legal precedent in Georgia, and few options exist for the semi-retired Bulloch County Superior Court judge overseeing Johnson’s case or Georgia Attorney General’s office prosecuting her case, according to a legal expert interviewed by The Current .

“The judge’s hands are tied,” said Melissa Redmon, an assistant professor with the University of Georgia School of Law. Because the Atlanta case “involves someone who is in custody and a trial that is already in progress, a judge is not going to pull (Steel) off that case to represent someone who is on bond for a nonviolent offense,” she said.

Johnson has been out on bond since her Sept. 2, 2021 indictment on charges she interfered in the investigation of Arbery’s murder on February 23, 2020.

Should Judge John Turner set a date for Johnson to go on trial, the move would be of little use if she or her attorney don’t show up.

Johnson’s situation is unlike most in Georgia’s legal system, where defendants are more likely to claim they had ineffective counsel or request a speedier trial to get them out of jail or remove the stigma of a pending indictment.

But Johnson, who was voted out of office in November 2020, appears to not have a pressing need for speed. The former DA  has pleaded not guilty to charges she used her authority to protect her former investigator and his son after they killed Arbery, which police had initially determined was a justified shooting. Seventy-four days went by before charges were filed against the three men eventually accused of racially motivated murder and a hate crime.

Johnson herself was indicted by Attorney General Chris Carr’s top attorneys, and community members were hopeful for a swift case like the one against the men who killed Arbery.

But as more time passed, Johnson was spared the usual scrutiny that follows a criminal indictment. She spent no time in jail and was never officially arraigned. Only a little evidence has emerged, including logs of phone calls between her and Gregory McMichael , her former investigator and one of the three men convicted of murdering Arbery.

For LaTanya Abbott-Austin, president of the Robert S. Abbott Race Unity Institute in Brunswick and descendent of the Chicago Tribune founder, the delays raise questions of disparity in treatment under the law. She wonders, would a Black person in Glynn County receive the same luxury of time that Johnson, a powerful white woman, has received in a criminal case?

“It’s like there’s two completely different law books sometimes,” she said, one for white Americans and one for Black Americans.

“If she had a part in delaying (the McMichaels and Bryan’s) arrest and their response, then she should be held accountable as well.”

For now, with charges pending, Johnson can still practice law in both Georgia and Florida.