Judge sets early 2025 trial for former Georgia prosecutor charged with meddling in Ahmaud Arbery investigation

On the third anniversary of Ahmaud Arbery's murder, runners, local leaders and family members gathered on Atlanta's West End to run 2.23 miles in his memory. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

A judge Tuesday set an early 2025 trial date for a former Georgia district attorney charged with interfering with the police investigation into the killing of Ahmaud Arbery,

Jury selection in the criminal misconduct trial of Jackie Johnson is scheduled to begin Jan. 21 in coastal Glynn County, according to an order by Senior Judge John R. Turner. He set a Dec. 11 hearing for attorneys to argue their final pretrial motions.

Johnson was the county’s top prosecutor in February 2020 when Arbery was fatally shot on a residential street as he ran from three white men chasing him in pickup trucks. While Arbery’s pursuers argued they mistakenly believed the 25-year-old Black man was a criminal and that he was shot in self-defense, all three were later convicted of murder and federal hate crimes.