Thread by @ASFleischman

I want to talk for a little bit about a case handled by the same DA who told Glynn County police not to arrest Ahmaud Arbery's killers.

It is about a white man, facing DUI charges, who persuaded Appling County Police that a black man had staged the accident. /1

#AhmaudArbery

On August 1, 2015, Steven Taylor stole some pain pills, got high, and drove off in his truck. He was not wearing a seatbelt. At some point, he fell asleep with his foot still on the gas, and his car hit a tree. /2

Taylor was badly hurt, consistent with a car accident. An accident reconstruction task force found that he had rammed his car into the tree. /3

Taylor had to be placed in a medical coma for a couple of weeks. When he woke up, he thought that was the end of things. But a few weeks later, he found out that he was being charged with DUI for the accident. He knew he was in "big trouble."

On October 6, he spoke to police. /4

He gave a pretty wild story, saying that after he stole the pills, Gibbs' girlfriend had chased him down with a car. He fled into the woods. Gibbs and another man beat him. Then they hosed him off in their front yard and laid him down on a couch, still bleeding heavily. /5

Police later tested that couch for Taylor's DNA. But, astonishingly, there was none to be found. /6

There were some other problems with Taylor's account. For instance, he told several people he had gotten into a car accident in the months before he went to police.

During a police interview, he changed his mind about Gibbs' girlfriend being there. /7

Then there were the practical problems. How do you move someone, secretly, during the day without getting any blood in your car or in the back seat of his truck?

How could he have no defensive wounds or marks on his hands if Gibbs had "pistol-whipped" him? /8

And there was another thing. A year after this happened, Steven Taylor deliberately rammed his wife's car with his own when he was high. It is unclear if he was ever convicted for the aggravated assault. /9

And finally, there's the thing the jury didn't learn, that the black box data from the truck made Steven Taylor's account impossible. /10

Whoever crashed that truck into a tree could not have used a brick, because there was variable acceleration. He could not have driven the car without getting hurt, because there was no seat belt.

The State suggested Gibbs had "jumped out" at the last second. /11

Right now, this case is at the Court of Appeals, which must decide if Gibbs' lawyer was ineffective for not presenting the black box evidence that made the State's account impossible.

/12

Gibbs was given twelve years in prison. His girlfriend, who is white, was given probation.

Knowing about the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, and how it handled #ahmaudarbery , it is hard to feel that race did not play a role. /13

If we do not prevail in this appeal, we will be asking for a sentence modification. We can only hope that the trial court will consider some of this history when deciding whether Gibbs' children should continue to live without their father. /14

Here is a copy of our brief:

efast.gaappeals.us/download/A20A1…

/f

And in the interests of fairness, here is the State's brief:

efast.gaappeals.us/download/A20A1…