GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

Well. A reason to give thanks.

To me, the video of Ahmaud Arbery being chased down by three white men in Georgia was worse than the murder of George Floyd, as terrible as that was. What happened to Ahmaud Arbery was the kind of thing you expected to see in the state of Georgia in 1950, not 2020.

And in the beginning, the local justice system lived down to my expectations and treated it the old-fashioned away, sweeping it under the rug. Only when video emerged months later were the assailants charged with murder.

And now, the verdict is in: guilty, guilty, guilty.

A Georgia jury of 11 whites and 1 African-American has convicted three white men of murder in the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

Travis McMichael, who shot fatally shot Arbery in February 2020, was convicted on all nine charges, including malice murder and four counts of felony murder.

McMichael's father, Gregory McMichael, 65, was found not guilty of malice murder, but was convicted on the remaining charges, including the felony murder counts.

The McMichael's neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, 53, was found guilty of three of the felony murder counts and a charge of criminal intent to commit a felony.

The jury verdict was reached this afternoon after they deliberated about 11 hours over two days.

I have to say, I was extremely fearful that the race-baiting by the two defense counsel would work with a Jawja white jury. But those people lived up to my hopes, rather than down to my expectations.

And the local District Attorney who initially refused to indict the McMichaels and Bryan now faces her own criminal charges. “Former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson turned herself in Wednesday morning at the Glynn County jail, county Undersheriff Ron Corbett said. Jail records show she was released on her own recognizance, meaning she did not have to pay a cash bond.”

Johnson, 49, was indicted by a grand jury last week on a felony charge of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of obstructing police. She was the area’s top prosecutor when Arbery was murdered last year. The indictment alleges she used her position to discourage police from making arrests in the killing.

Let’s hear it for the phone cameras, and the people with the courage to wield them at the right time. Had a video not come to light, Johnson and the murderers might have gotten away with it.

There are people still living in Georgia and the Deep South who remember when white people getting convicted of murdering an Black man was as likely as, well, Georgia electing an African-American U.S. Senator.