The District Attorney Who Saw “No Grounds for Arrest” in the Killing of Ahmaud Arbery Has a History

The District Attorney Who Saw “No Grounds for Arrest” in the Killing of Ahmaud Arbery Has a History
Olivia Pearson’s life was turned upside down by George Barnhill, and she hasn’t forgotten.
By JOEL ANDERSON

MAY 09, 202011:32 AM
A mural that says "Welcome to Brunswick Georgia" on a building with police cars parked in front of it


On April 1, Georgia District Attorney George Barnhill finally received the autopsy report for a 25-year-old black jogger killed during a Feb. 23 confrontation with three white Glynn County men. A day later, Barnhill laid out the case for why he didn’t believe the men should be arrested for the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery.

“It appears Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and [William Bryan] were following, in ‘hot pursuit,’ a burglary suspect, with solid firsthand probable cause,” Barnhill wrote to a Glynn County police captain in a three-page letter. “Given the fact Arbery initiated the fight, at the point Arbery grabbed the shotgun [that Travis McMichael was holding], under Georgia law, McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.”

As we all now know, Arbery wasn’t the burglar, and there was no good reason to think he was, but Barnhill’s letter provided the foundation of the argument against charging the McMichaels until just a few days ago, when a grisly cellphone video of Arbery’s death went viral and brought national outrage and renewed attention to the case.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation Wednesday and charged the McMichaels with murder and aggravated assault Thursday. A day later, the agency couldn’t help but take a swipe at the local investigation.

“Probable cause was clear to our agents pretty quickly,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds said during a press conference Friday, implying that it should have been just as clear to George Barnhill.


Barnhill, 63, has worked in relative obscurity as a small-town prosecutor for 36 years. He was assigned the case only after another prosecutor recused herself because Greg McMichael used to work in her office. In the letter to the police captain, Barnhill noted Greg McMichael also worked in a district attorney’s office where his son is a prosecutor.

“The victim’s mother has clearly expressed she wants myself and my office off the case,” Barnhill wrote. “She believes there are kinships between the parties (there are not) and has made other unfounded allegations of bias(es).”


A few weeks later, Barnhill requested the state assign another prosecutor to the case, but only after making clear that he saw “no grounds for arrest.”

Barnhill’s role in the Arbery shooting is his first real brush with national scrutiny. But I recalled Barnhill from an assignment in 2017, when he was doggedly pursuing Olivia Pearson on charges of felony voter fraud. Pearson, a 58-year-old black activist and city commissioner in the South Georgia town of Douglas, stood accused of improperly helping a woman vote—showing a young, first-time, black voter how to use a voting machine when she didn’t know how—in October 2012.