ATLANTA — The prosecution in the criminal trial of former Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson suffered a blow Monday when the presiding judge dismissed one of the two charges in the case.

Senior Judge John R. Turner dismissed Count 2 of Johnson’s indictment — an obstruction charge — shortly after Deputy Attorney General John Fowler rested the prosecution’s case.

“I think Count 2 fails,” Turner said, adding, “there is not one scintilla of evidence that I’ve heard.”

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office had accused the former Brunswick prosecutor of instructing police not to arrest Ahmaud Arbery’s killer.

But Glynn County’s assistant police Chief Stephanie Oliver testified last week that never happened, and that she never even spoke to Johnson about the case. Stephan Lowery, another Glynn County police officer whom Johnson is accused of instructing not to make an arrest, did not testify in the trial. Fowler may have known this was coming because he never mentioned the obstruction charge during his opening statement to the jury.

Johnson’s remaining felony charge of violating her oath of office will remain in place for now, Turner ruled.

“We think that some things have happened that will probably shorten the trial,” Turner told the jury after making his decision.

Johnson’s attorneys had asked that he grant a motion of acquittal on both of Johnson’s charges. Such a ruling, called a directed verdict, is given when a judge believes no reasonable jury could find a defendant guilty of a charge.

Jurors heard from 14 witnesses during the prosecution’s weeklong case, but none of them indicated Johnson hindered the police investigation into Ahmaud Arbery’s Feb. 23, 2020 murder.

Johnson’s attorney, Brian Steel, is also challenging the validity of Count 1 of the indictment, which is predicated on the oath of office Johnson took in 2010 after being appointed by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue. Steel argued last week the indictment is deficient because that oath was not in effect at the time of Arbery’s murder. In fact, Johnson took two other oaths since then, after winning reelection bids in 2012 and 2016.

In arguing for the dismissal of both counts, Steel said he didn’t believe prosecutors came close to proving the charges alleged in the indictment.

On Monday, prosecutors played an interview Johnson gave a Jesup radio host in May of 2020, just after Greg and Travis McMichael were arrested by the GBI. Amid mass protests over Arbery’s killing, Johnson maintained in the interview that she did nothing wrong.

She never instructed Glynn County police not to arrest Arbery’s killers, she told radio host Bob Morgan, and she didn’t see the video of the Arbery’s killing until it was leaked online more than 70 days later.

“I saw this video last week on television for the first time,” Johnson said in the interview. “I saw it when everybody else did.”

She also explained on-air that she recused herself immediately after learning the case involved the elder McMichael, who had previously worked as an investigator in her office.

“I did not talk to Glynn County police that day,” Johnson said in the interview. “I said, ‘look, we cannot be involved in that.”

She called George E. Barnhill, then DA of the neighboring Waycross Judicial Circuit, and asked him to meet with police and answer their questions. Barnhill would later determine that Arbery’s shooting was justified after meeting with police Feb. 24 and watching the video of the chase and killing, he testified last week.

In pushing for a full acquittal, Steel told the judge, “there’s nothing here.”

He cited several of the prosecution’s witnesses who have said Johnson did nothing illegal.

The McMichaels were convicted of murder in 2021, along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the chase and deadly shooting. All three men were convicted of federal hate crime charges the following year after prosecutors successfully argued they targeted Arbery because of his race.

Despite recusing herself in the wake of Arbery’s shooting, Johnson exchanged more than a dozen calls with Greg McMichael in the weeks leading up to his arrest, a GBI analyst testified Monday.

Those calls began Feb. 23, 2020, when McMichael left Johnson a voicemail asking for help about an hour after chasing the 25-year-old Black man to his death in their coastal Georgia subdivision.

Records showed the final call from Greg McMichael came to Johnson’s cellphone on May 5, the day the cellphone footage of Arbery’s murder was leaked online, prompting worldwide outrage. Greg McMichael was arrested by the GBI two days later along with his son, who fired the fatal shotgun blasts.

Call logs showed Johnson and the elder McMichael called each other 16 times after Arbery’s murder. Many of those calls were never picked up, but several lasted nine minutes or more.

Jurors also heard from Oliver a second time after the assistant chief was called back to the stand. She contradicted testimony given by Barnhill on Friday, who indicated Glynn County police had made up their minds that Arbery’s killing was justified when he met with investigators the following day.

Oliver said police never filed charges because it was Barnhill who told them the shooting was justified. Prior to giving his opinion, Barnhill told investigators he had reviewed or prosecuted hundreds of homicides throughout his career, according to Oliver. “He said that case was clearly a justification, self-defense case,” she said.

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