Jesse Jackson Shows Up To Ahmaud Arbery Trial Despite Lawyer Saying ‘We Don’t Want any More Black Pastors Here’
Last week, we reported that Kevin Gough, the attorney representing William “Roddie” Bryan, one of the three men accused of hunting down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, found the unmitigated caucasity to stand up in a courtroom and declare in front of a judge and jury that “We don’t want any more Black pastors here.”
The defense attorney in the trial in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery is objecting to Al Sharpton’s presence in the courtroom, claiming it is intimidating the jury:
“We don’t want any more Black pastors in here” pic.twitter.com/LoQhor0WJN
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 11, 2021
“If we’re going to set a precedent from yesterday where we’re going to bring leading members of the African American community into the courtroom to sit with the family during the trial in front of the jury, I believe that’s intimidating, it’s an attempt to pressure…or influence the jury,” Gough said. “The idea that we’re going to be serially bringing these people in series to sit down with the victim’s family one after another…obviously, there’s only a limited number of pastors they can have. If their pastor is Al Sharpton right now that’s fine, but that’s it. We don’t want any more black pastors here…Jesse Jackson, or whoever was in here earlier this week.”
Well, the latter Black leader whose name found its way into Gough’s Klan-hole of a mouth wouldn’t be deterred from showing up for Arbery’s family and on Monday, Jackson walked into that courtroom just as the defense was cross-examining a Georgia state investigator who interviewed one of the defendants, according to KAKE.com.
After, getting dragged across social media for basically being the Matlock of white supremacy, Gough did what most racists do after saying the quiet part out loud and claimed he was taken out of context.
“I will let the court know that if my statements yesterday were overly broad,” he said in a statement Friday. “I will follow up with a more specific motion on Monday putting those concerns in the proper context. And my apologies to anyone who might have inadvertently been offended.”
For the record: Gough’s words were not “overly broad;” they were direct and unambiguous. Gough’s real problem appears to be that he forgot what year it is and that blatant racism in a court of law is no longer socially or legally acceptable—you have to use veiled racism and dog whistles instead of just coming out the gate with big grand wizard energy.
Gough’s confusion is understandable considering the fact that this is a case where three white men are essentially accused of lynching a Black man and 11 out of the 12 jurors presiding over the case are white. I mean, how is this not 1955?
Anyway, while Gough must have realized his folly in being blatantly racist in court, he still wasn’t done pressing the issue of Black pastors being allowed in the courtroom. On Monday, he asked Judge Timothy Walmsley to “have the sheriff or bailiffs or whoever the court directs identify and keep track of the individuals in the public gallery in the courtroom” for the rest of the trial so that he could use the record in filing an appeal should his client be found guilty. Walmsley denied the request just as he denied his initial motion to keep the church negroes out of the proceedings.
SEE ALSO:
[ione_media_gallery id=”3944536″ overlay=”true”]