Updated, 4:15 p.m. Aug. 3, 2026, to include Walmsley’s age and reason for resignation.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley, who presided over the 2021 trial that ended with the conviction of three White men for the shocking murder Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, is stepping down from the bench.
Walmsley formally notified Gov. Brian Kemp in a letter on Monday of his decision to resign his post, effective Sept. 1, after more than 14 years serving in the Eastern Judicial Circuit, which covers Chatham County.
A longtime resident of Chatham County, the 57-year-old Walmsley told The Current he plans to take a job with Robbins, an Atlanta-based law firm specializing in litigation and regulatory law.
“There’s no medical [reason], no scandal, no nothing,” Walmsley said of his decision to leave the bench. “I’ve been given a great opportunity to go back into private practice. I have enjoyed my 15 years serving this community, and it’s time for a new challenge.” For the immediate future, he will continue residing in the county, he said.
Over his tenure as a Superior Court judge, Walmsley oversaw thousands of cases. But he most likely will be remembered for overseeing the trial of Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, William “Roddie” Bryan, the racially motivated murder that sparked soul-searching and reform in Glynn County.
On Feb. 23, 2020, the three men had pursued the 25-year-old Black man in two vehicles as he jogged through Glynn County’s Satilla Shores neighborhood. After several minutes, they succeeded in blocking his path. Travis McMichael got out of his vehicle, rifle in hand. When Arbery tried to take the gun away, the younger McMichael shot and killed him. Bryan recorded the shooting on his cell phone.
Judge Timothy Walmsley Credit: Chatham County Courts
Walmsley was appointed to preside over the trial after judges in the Brunswick Judicial Circuit recused themselves from the case. The elder McMichael was an investigator employed by the area district attorney at the time of Arbery’s murder.
The trial began 603 days later after Arbery’s death.
Walmsley’s sentencing of the men to life without parole offered a powerful summary of the violence, describing the defendants’ actions as “callous” and “disturbing.”
“I thought from a lot of different angles, and I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man,” he said of Arbery, a former football player at Brunswick High School, as he pronounced the three mens’ sentences.
Asked Monday about the place of the Arbery trial in his career, Walmsley shied from discussing any details, drawing a broad picture instead: “I considered it a privilege to serve the community and the state of Georgia for 15 years, and I take very seriously the idea of an independent judiciary and the rule of law, and hope that that has been reflected in my work.”
Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Walmsley in 2012 to the Eastern Judicial Circuit, the jurisdiction that covers Savannah and Chatham County. He won reelection to the bench in 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2026. Before that, he was a partner at the Savannah law firm of HunterMaclean, where he specialized in commercial and real estate litigation. He also served as a part-time judge in Chatham County’s magistrate court.
