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

[dalton99a]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/ahmaud-arbery-george-barnhill-olivia-pearson.html

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

...

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.

Barnhill had worked as a prosecutor in this rural corner of Georgia since graduating from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in 1983. In 2014, he was elected district attorney of a six-county region. “Criminal prosecution is what I do,” Barnhill told the Waycross Journal-Herald in 2014. “I enjoy trying cases. This has always been my profession, what I chose to do.”

Barnhill’s prosecution of Pearson was part of a larger campaign by then–Secretary of State (and now Gov.) Brian Kemp, Georgia’s top elections official, to make vigilance against voter fraud a priority. I was alerted to the case while reporting on voter suppression efforts heading into the 2016 presidential election. Voting rights groups flagged Barnhill’s prosecution as part of an obvious and well-orchestrated attempt to intimidate black voters. After all, Pearson was accused of simply showing a young woman how to use a voting machine, not of influencing her vote.

It was an especially uncommon prosecution: At the time, only 10 of the 154 illegal voter assistance investigations in the previous three years in Georgia had been referred to a prosecutor. Most were closed without a ruling or dismissed. But Barnhill’s office was relentless in pursuing what they saw as an important case, and Pearson’s prosecution spanned two trials and two years.

[SunSeeker]

1. Evil fucking racist.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2020/05/07/ware-county-prosecutor-saw-no-grounds-for-arrests-before-passing-on-arbery-shooting-death/

[madeup64]

8. This can't be him

Oh that's right he knows better than to wear the white hat out into public.

So was the framed picture of Jeff Sessions in this guy's living room 24×48 or bigger? (before Trump broke up with Sessions of course)

[Newest Reality]

2. Personal

Last edited Sat May 9, 2020, 07:53 PM - Edit history (1)

It looks like Barnhill's idea of prosecution is having a venue for personal, predatory persecution and that has nothing at all to do with justice and more to do with a legal form of stalking.

Oh, I know that prosecutors like to go for wins as "points" for their efficacy, but this one is very different. Prosecutors still are representatives of the people and supposed act on our behalf for various reason that are obvious.

That's rather pathological, but I guess we have a system that allows or encourages that kind of unprofessional behavior where you can use the "love of your profession" to fulfill deeper, darker, psychological needs.

And that has led up to another miscarriage of justice by way of allowing a personality of that kind to have power over other people and freely base their duties and obligations on things like racism and favoritism.

That's not justice. It's a travesty. And Kemp? Well, it is top down.

[niyad]

7. Barnhill is the prosecutor. Pearson his victim.

[Newest Reality]

10. Oops. Thanks.

[tulipsandroses]

3. That whole DA's office and police dept needs to be scrubbed or eliminated

I made a thread about the other DA - Jackie Johnson- who oversaw another controversial killing by two police officers. She declined to press charges when another DA wanted to. One of those officers went on to murder his ex wife and her friend before killing himself.
6 years of that officer's record somehow disappeared. What they did not destroy and was able to be seen still had troubling things on his record. Who knows what was in the records that disappeared.
Clearly an officer that should not be on the force.

[crickets]

4. +1

[UTUSN]

5. K&R

[Ford_Prefect]

6. Yet Another Entitled White Meathead Tap Dancing On Our Souls.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. He would seem to yet another closet racist, known by his actions rather than statements. . . . nt