weird, huh?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/us/georgia-ahmaud-arbery-district-attorney-trnd/index.html
"Keith Higgins knew he faced long odds when he entered the race.
It's hard to run as an independent candidate in Georgia. It's even harder in a small community, when you're running against someone who's been top prosecutor in the area for about a decade.
A year ago it seemed like Higgins' campaign for district attorney of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit had stalled without even getting off the ground.
Then came a case that drew national attention and protests to this conservative corner of southeast Georgia. And everything changed.
In February, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was jogging in a waterfront neighborhood near Brunswick when a former police officer and his son, both White, chased him down and shot and killed him. Critics accused Jackie Johnson, the district attorney, of mishandling the investigation before she recused herself over a conflict of interest."
well here's part of why:
A series of controversial cases
(note the protective law enforcement stance in each case, likely because the constituents are "law and order" types)
CASE #1
It started 10 years ago with a 35-year-old woman named Caroline Small.
On June 18, 2010, Small was shot and killed by two officers in Brunswick after leading police on an erratic, low-speed car chase.
The case didn't come before a grand jury until 2011, when jurors found the shooting was justified and cleared both officers involved of wrongdoing.
But a 2015 investigation by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and CNN affiliate WSB-TV found that Johnson's office shared the prosecution's evidence with the officers about two months before the grand jury met. She also made an unconventional bargain with the officers, agreeing not to offer an indictment for jurors to consider unless they asked, the news organizations found.
CASE #2
Then in 2018, one of the officers involved in Small's shooting was arrested for domestic violence after allegedly harassing his estranged wife and threatening to kill her, according to CNN affiliate WSB-TV. The officer was released on bond.
Days later, he was arrested again after an armed standoff with officers, the AJC reported. Again, he was released on bond despite violating bond the first time.
The AJC later reported that Johnson's office did not allow a key witness to testify at the officer's bond hearing, raising further questions about whether the officer was receiving preferential treatment from the district attorney's office.
Weeks later, that officer killed his wife and one of her friends before taking his own life. Advocates for Small and her family said his record should have raised alarms for prosecutors and police much earlier.
CASE #3 - ARBERY
Johnson recused herself from the case within days after Arbery was shot, citing Gregory's McMichael's 20 years as an investigator in her office. Local officials alleged she told police not to make an arrest, which Johnson has denied.
Shortly after the shooting, Gregory McMichael called Johnson, his former boss, from the crime scene, a Georgia prosecutor said at a bond hearing on Nov. 13.
"Jackie, this is Greg," the elder McMichael is heard saying in the voicemail. "Could you call me as soon as you possibly can? My (inaudible) and I been involved in a shooting and I need some advice right away. Could you please call me, as soon as you possibly can? Thanks. Bye."
Johnson asked a district attorney in another circuit, Waycross DA George Barnhill, to come advise police the day after Arbery's death. In doing so, she ignored state guidelines on handling conflicts of interest, according to the AJC. The guidelines stipulate that she should have immediately turned the case over to Georgia's attorney general.
Instead, the AJC reported, Johnson waited three days after the shooting before disclosing her conflict to the attorney general, by which time Barnhill had formed an opinion about the case.
