Ahmaud Arbery death trial | Defense attorneys move for mistrial

and let me back up if you're moving for a mistrial you need to move from mistral i'm louis for mr based on based on the presence of people in the courtroom and public gathering i have to stop for my mom we have a witness now on this stand okay if you go ahead and step down and i do actually very much appreciate for helping me maintain a record on this we formally moved for a mistrial under the 5th 6th and 14th amendments of the u.s constitution parallel provisions of the constitution the state of georgia we contend that the atmosphere of the trial inside and outside the courtroom at this point has deprived mr brian right to a fair trial i understand that co-counsel vehemently disagree on some on some aspects of that motion and if they don't want to join that's their business but i represent mr brian and my concern your honor notwithstanding what in my observation would be extraordinary efforts on the part of the court to avoid anything that would interfere with the right of these defendants to a fair trial at the same time in extraordinary cases like this additional steps have to be taken we have not secured the front of this courthouse the transformative justice coalition still flies their banner virtually every day outside in what should be protected grounds your honor we have had numerous instances during jury several instances during jury selection of nonverbal communications between the victims family and jurors or from juror to the victim's family we've had several emotional outbursts during the trial of this case notwithstanding the substantial efforts of the court to ensure that they don't take place and we haven't had civil rights icons sitting in here and what the civil rights community contends is a quote-unquote test case for civil rights in the united states eyeballing these jurors including one today with his mask down which the court doesn't want to make part of the record yeah i i rephrased you made it part of the record well until the court acknowledges it it's not part of the record keep going mr coffin your honor the case law out there in mob cases in other cases demonstrates all the ways that presence in a gallery can influence jurors in a case and i certainly don't mean to suggest that al sharpton or jesse jackson or any other pastor belong to a mob but at the same time we are talking about organized behavior by whoever outside the courthouse leading up to this case we have all these community leaders fearful that the city is going to burn down this isn't a mob case if you testify against a gangster they might burn your house down it might bring your business down not going to burn your whole city down and that is the concern that i believe jurors have expressed during the war dear process in that a county commissioner a mayor school board member a bunch of pastors in this community both black and white have been talking about so in that context we believe the totality of the circumstances which is what this court looks at under shepard b maxwell under the totality of circumstances this trial has been sufficiently infected not withstanding the best efforts of the court to the point where mr brown's ability to receive a fair trial that has become an open question we think that line's been crossed the court may see it differently but we've made that for purposes of the record on behalf of travis michael we're constrained to join um i did notice jurors a few noticed the outburst i don't think it gets any more difficult at moments like this for the family members to have to to sit through the evidence this moment feels unique in that the one piece of evidence that the state put up was not you know so inflammatory but there were several jurors that did look over their faces changed the emotion the sympathy that they felt and to see then mr reverend jackson whose autographed picture hung in my mother's law office for two decades who is the the ultimate figure of fairness and justice and equality to see that i don't think it gets any higher in terms of the impression that that makes and for those reasons i think that makes this very unique and that's why we're constrained to join your honor thank you yeah likewise on behalf of greg mcmichael we are constrained to join this motion but for some slightly different reasons i'd like to highlight it was apparent from the beginning of voidir that it was going to be difficult even long before voidier that it was going to be difficult to get a jury who hadn't formed opinions and we worked very hard to do that and we would have loved to have had a jury that represents the demographic composition of glenn county which would have been three or four african americans on the jury we were not able to do that i think some comments by the court in denying the state's reverse bats in motion i take exception to them and with all due respect but it's continued the difficulty we've had from the beginning in trying to determine is this the right venue for this case we hoped it would be we wanted it to be but in light of what's going on now and what has been the history of this case up to now we are constrained to join the motion for mistrial but for these slightly different reasons i don't know what this talk about change of venue is there's nothing wrong with this venue uh we're not concerned about the venue but we are concerned about the details as to how this trial has progressed notwithstanding the extraordinary efforts that this court has made and i certainly don't want the court to think for a moment that that mr brown and i don't very much appreciate the incredible amount of work the court has put into this and the thoughtfulness but if the court's not going to grant a mistrial i would hopefully urge the court to consider adopting other precautions to ensure that the court doesn't wind up where the court has to grant that motion anything from the state yes a mistrial is a proper remedy for incurable fundamental unfairness in the proceedings there's a case from 1992 sorry 1999 kc ca s e y versus the state 237 georgia app 461 where jurors briefly saw the defendant in handcuffs and that did not require a mistrial because there was no showing of actual prejudice quickly looking today right now on lexus what we have is also bird versus the state byrd this is a supreme court of georgia case from 1992 it's 262 georgia 426 basically holding that because the trial court took prompt thorough and curative action the outburst of the victim's relative did not deny a defendant a fair and impartial trial and his motion for mistrial was properly denied this court obviously took prompt thorough and curative action by having the jury leave immediately in addition i don't want to cite something before i actually read it so i'm going to take a look at it we have simmons versus the state 308 georgia 327 a march 13 2020 case simmons contended that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his motion for mistrial in response to and they put these in quotes emotional outbursts of the victims family members and friends however the georgia supreme court saw no abuse of discretion they then cited to numerous cases there stating that trial courts are vested with great discretion to grant or deny mistrials because they are the in the best possible position to determine whether one is actually warranted or not measures to be taken as a result of demonstrations and outbursts which occur during the course of a trial are matters within the trial court's discretion and of course such discretion will not be disturbed upon appeal unless there's a showing that a mistrial is essential to the preservation of the right to a fair trial this was minor weeping in the back and the court took immediate curative action um additional action can be taken to instruct the jury there to ignore any sort of emotional outbursts that take place and at this time judge we ask that you deny any sort of mistrial based on the outburst or well really wasn't outburst it was in the states position it was kind of a gulp and a weep yeah like that and that was basically all it was that the state heard so i just want to make sure that characterization it wasn't somebody shouting it wasn't somebody as they say falling out hysterical um nothing along those lines at all so we ask that you deny any motion for mistrial on that basis and ask that the court take kind of into consideration that and and disregard the oh how am i trying to say the mixing up or or confluence of multiple arguments about reverend jackson being here and that somehow having something to do with the outburst or something like this these are all very very separate issues neither which independently or even together at the same time require manifest necessity for a mistrial we ask that you deny that miss trump and i believe that the last word yes well the shepherd of course looking at the totality of circumstances here and under the totality of circumstances we believe that this trial is warranted i think uh the states has certainly accurately summarized the relevant law with respect to the court's discretion and with respect to whether an appeals court would reverse the determination by this court but still ultimately it is your honor who makes that call and that's why you get paid the big bucks because you're the one sitting here as the umpire in the case the advocates we all see things from our perspective you're the neutral here and you make the call but i would just admit under the totality of circumstances in this case from the commencement of jury selection to today that these defendants can no longer get a fair trial it appears there's some language in these cases about what what is now incumbent upon the court until the state has to hold the trembling hand of the accused i would suggest that these types of moments don't impact the state they favor the state and it is now incumbent upon the court to decide to grant mistrial or to present curative instruction was asked for cure of instruction as an alternative at this point yeah well the idea that you have to then potentially inquire of jurors and ask them if they heard it and if they noticed it we're not asking for that however we're at two strikes we've had one outburst that's been addressed now we've had a second the court has to decide what to do all right and then follow mr no further comment all right it's uh in this court's discretion with regard to any outburst in the courtroom um taking a consideration as well as the defendant's motion for a mistrial um so i'm cited a couple cases uh let's see foreign i think it's 40 versus state 255 georgia 316 which actually recognizes that emotions are neither unreasonable nor unexpected during a murder trial and the demonstrations and outbursts which occurred during the course of the trial are matters within the court's discretion to evaluate the court heard exactly what i described on the record decided to remove the jury briefly and it was ready to get started based on that outburst the court is not granting a mistrial as to the totality of the circumstances argument which i think is the second argument that was presented by mr goff that gets back to what i'm starting to watch very carefully as far as what's going on in this courtroom with the jury as well as the arguments that are being made by council i'll point out that a number of times during jury selection it was raised that jurors were being influenced by individuals outside the court and i think it was either four or five jurors were asked specifically whether or not they were influenced in some way by what was going on outside the courtroom and they were not there was no actually if i remember correctly they didn't even recognize or see what was going on outside the courtroom and as council are aware because i have brief counsel there are steps being taken by the court during the jury trial to ensure that jurors are not influenced by anything happening around the courthouse so then we start getting into what we have now with individual members or individuals coming into the courtroom i will say that is directly in response mr goff to statements you made which i find reprehensible these the colonel sanders statement you made last week i would suggest maybe something that has influenced what is going on here in response to that and to his credit mr sheffield made some comments but did say you know come one come all um and so now the court is faced with balancing a lot of things going on outside this courtroom and doing it in a way that respects members of the public's right to be in the courtroom as well as of what's what i'm trying to put out there is a fair trial right so you need to understand everybody that your words in this courtroom have an impact on a lot of what's going on and so my measured response at this point is to balance all of that out and try to move forward with the trial i'm not granting a mistrial at this point based on these arguments that are being made because i think i'm not granting a mistrial at this point based on the arguments that have been made i'll be ready with the witness from the state i'll be mr um

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Keywords: Ahmaud Arbery, Ahmaud Arbery case, Ahmaud Arbery case update, Ahmaud Arbery trial, Arbery case update, Arbery trial, Court Live, Georgia, Georgia news, Trials, Arbery Trial

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Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021