Linda Dunikoski: Career, Arbery Case Strategy, and Current Role

Linda Dunikoski is the Georgia prosecutor best known for leading the state’s murder case against the three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020. As lead trial prosecutor, she secured guilty verdicts in November 2021 against Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan, all three of whom were sentenced to life in prison. She now serves as an assistant district attorney for the Augusta Judicial Circuit, where she was sworn in on January 3, 2025.¹

Background and Path to Prosecution

Dunikoski grew up in Indiana and graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington with a political science degree in 1989. She spent about a decade working in the trade show exhibit industry, rising to a director of sales role, and enrolled in the part-time evening program at Georgia State University College of Law, earning her law degree in 1993.² After a brief year in criminal defense and domestic practice in Clayton County, she returned to sales for roughly another eight years before rejoining the legal profession.³

In July 2002, she joined the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office under then-DA Paul Howard. She stayed for about 17 years, moving from the Crimes Against Women and Children Division to the Major Cases division, where she focused on homicides. She has tried more than 90 felony cases to verdict, most of them murders. In August 2019, she left Fulton County to lead the appeals division at the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office as a senior assistant district attorney.² That move placed her in the office that would eventually inherit the Arbery prosecution.

The Ahmaud Arbery Case

Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased through the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, on February 23, 2020, by Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan. Travis McMichael shot Arbery dead in the street. No arrests were made for 74 days, and the case only gained momentum after cellphone video recorded by Bryan leaked online on May 5, 2020. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested the McMichaels two days later, and Bryan two weeks after that.⁴

The Prosecutors Before Her

By the time Dunikoski’s office got the case, it had already passed through five prosecutors. Brunswick Judicial Circuit DA Jackie Johnson recused herself because Gregory McMichael had been an investigator in her office. Neighboring DA George Barnhill also recused, after his son’s connections to Johnson’s office and to a prior prosecution involving Arbery came to light.⁴ Tom Durden of the Atlantic Judicial Circuit stepped down citing a lack of resources. Then-Cobb County DA Joyette Holmes was appointed next but lost her 2020 reelection. Her deputy, Jesse Evans, briefly took the lead before resigning in April 2021.⁵

Dunikoski was formally named lead prosecutor on April 26, 2021, becoming the sixth prosecutor assigned to the case, though she had been working on it since it arrived at the Cobb County office. She was joined by fellow Cobb prosecutors Larissa Ollivierre and Paul Camarillo.⁶

Her Trial Strategy

Dunikoski built her case around dismantling the defendants’ two legal theories: that they were attempting a lawful citizen’s arrest and that Travis McMichael fired in self-defense. She argued the men had no evidence Arbery had committed any crime and therefore no basis to detain him. In her opening statement, she told the jury the defendants acted on “assumptions” rather than facts.³

She made a deliberate decision to say very little about race during the three-week trial, before a jury of nine white women, two white men, and one Black man.⁷ She later explained that Georgia had no hate crime statute at the time of the killing, so race was not a legal element of the charges, and she believed the video evidence spoke for itself.³ She raised motive on race only once, in closing, telling the jury the defendants attacked Arbery “because he was a Black man running down the street.”⁸

Her cross-examination of Travis McMichael was widely seen as the trial’s turning point. She systematically exposed inconsistencies in his account, pointing out he had never mentioned attempting a citizen’s arrest in his initial statements to police. Using a large whiteboard to record his own admissions, she emphasized that Arbery was unarmed, had repeatedly tried to flee, and that McMichael had at least three opportunities to break off the pursuit and wait for police. She also introduced his social media history, including posts promoting vigilantism.⁹

In her closing, Dunikoski cast the defendants as the “initial, unjustified aggressors.” “You can’t bring a gun to a fistfight,” she told the jury, describing how the three men used their trucks to trap Arbery “like a rat” and arguing they killed him not because he threatened them, but because he refused to stop and talk.¹⁰

Verdicts and Sentences

On November 24, 2021, after roughly a day of deliberation, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants. Travis McMichael was convicted on all nine counts, including malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony. Gregory McMichael was convicted on all counts except malice murder.¹¹ Bryan was convicted on six of nine counts, including three counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit a felony.¹²

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley sentenced the defendants on January 7, 2022. Travis and Gregory McMichael each received life in prison without parole, plus 20 years. Bryan received life with the possibility of parole, meaning he must serve at least 30 years before eligibility, plus a suspended 10-year sentence.¹³

Speaking after the verdict, Dunikoski said: “I think the message is that you have to let the criminal justice system work and, in this case, yes, it did work.”¹⁴

A separate federal hate crimes trial followed in February 2022. Dunikoski was not involved. All three defendants were convicted of interfering with Arbery’s civil rights and attempted kidnapping, and in August 2022 U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced both McMichaels to life and Bryan to 35 years, running concurrently with their state terms.¹⁵ The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld those federal convictions in November 2025.¹⁶

Recognition Following the Trial

The Arbery convictions brought Dunikoski a wave of professional recognition. The Daily Report’s Georgia Legal Awards named her Attorney of the Year in June 2022. The following month, the AGACL Board of Directors gave her an Advocacy Award for excellence in the litigation of complex homicide cases.¹⁷ In July 2023, the District Attorneys’ Association of Georgia named her Prosecutor of the Year at the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia’s Summer Conference, citing her 21 years of service and her leadership of the Arbery trial team.¹⁸ In May 2024, she returned to Georgia State University College of Law to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2024, telling graduates she “found fulfillment in the profession in being the voice for victims as a prosecutor.”¹⁹

Where She Works Now

Dunikoski was sworn in on January 3, 2025 as an assistant district attorney for the Augusta Judicial Circuit under District Attorney Jared Williams. She holds the titles of Chief of Appeals and Director of Attorney Development.¹ Her duties include representing Richmond and Burke counties in appellate courts, training local prosecutors, and assisting in jury trials involving serious violent felonies.²⁰ Her hiring was funded by roughly $1.1 million in additional money the Augusta Commission approved for the DA’s office in November 2024.

Alongside her prosecutorial work, she keeps a speaking and consulting practice. She delivers keynote addresses at legal conferences in the United States and Canada on trial preparation, closing arguments, jury selection, and what she calls “Strategic Case Analysis,” and she trains Georgia prosecutors and judges on post-conviction motions. She also consults for authors and screenwriters seeking accuracy in courtroom scenes and publishes a monthly newsletter titled “What You Think You Know About Crime is Wrong.”¹⁷

1
WRDW. Premier Georgia Prosecutor Takes Key Role in Augusta DA’s Office
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Georgia State University News. The Making of a Trial Maven
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CAFE. Convicting Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers With ADA Linda Dunikoski
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CBS News. Wanda Cooper-Jones, Ahmaud Arbery Murder, Justice
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CNN. Key Characters in the Ahmaud Arbery Trial
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Fox 5 Atlanta. New Lead Prosecutor Named in Case of Ahmaud Arbery’s Death
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The New York Times. Prosecutor, White Jury, Conviction in Ahmaud Arbery Case
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The New York Times. Arbery Murder Trial Prosecutor Closing Arguments
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WAMU. The Man Who Killed Ahmaud Arbery Is Cross-Examined in His Murder Trial
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Politico. Ahmaud Arbery Closing Arguments
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ABC News. Jury Reaches Verdict in Ahmaud Arbery Death Case
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CNN. Ahmaud Arbery Killing Trial Verdict
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NPR. Ahmaud Arbery Killers Sentence
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CNN. Prosecutors Ahmaud Arbery Verdict Jury Race
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ABC News. Men in Ahmaud Arbery Case Sentenced on Hate Crime Charges
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CBS News. Ahmaud Arbery Killers Appeals Court Upholds Hate Crime Convictions
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Linda Dunikoski. Linda Dunikoski Official Website
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Cobb County Courier. Linda Dunikoski Honored by Georgia Prosecutors
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Georgia State University News. Georgia State Law Class of 2024 Looks to the Future
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The Augusta Press. Augusta Judicial Circuit Gets New Assistant District Attorney