The Ahmaud Arbery Case: Stepping toward Social Justice

Following the George Floyd trial, we have a minor miracle to celebrate: the rightful conviction of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. I call it a miracle because so much about this case predicted yet another acquittal of white crime against people of color.

The stars were not aligned in favor of justice:

• Arbery, a young 25-year-old man, was “jogging while Black” and in a neighborhood where he “didn’t belong.”
• The crime took place in Georgia, a state where a citizen’s arrest law remains on the books, left over from the days of slavery when it was designed to allow white men to capture escaping enslaved people.
• Georgia is also an open-carry jurisdiction.
• The perpetrators were a former police officer and district attorney investigator with connections to two district attorneys.
• Early in the case, two DAs colluded to make sure no charges were filed against the perpetrators for more than two months.

Because the DAs deemed there was insufficient probable cause to make an arrest, seventy-four days elapsed before an arrest was made, irrespective of the fact that the police knew who the perpetrators were. It took circulation of a thirty-six-second video of the killing—which motivated prominent figures such as LeBron James, Stacey Abrams, and Governor Brian Kemp to speak out amid mounting protests—to launch an investigation, make the arrests, and ultimately file criminal charges.

The video shows the actual hunting and killing of the young jogger. But for the emergence of that cell phone video, another Black man’s death would have gone unprosecuted. After eleven hours of deliberation across two days, a jury of one Black and eleven white persons found the three defendants guilty of murder. They were sentenced to life in prison.

Justice was satisfied in this case, as it was in the George Floyd case. However, the fact that we find the conviction noteworthy and a cause for celebration says much about where American law enforcement and justice stand. We have a long way to go.

The three men convicted of the killing are now also facing federal hate crime and kidnapping charges. Jury selection for that trial is slated to begin on February 7. May the outcome of this trial prove to be another step toward social justice.

—Martha Y. Zavala