- Lawyers representing three men are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to vacate hate crime convictions related to the pursuit and killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
- Lawyers have argued that evidence of past racist comments by the men does not prove a racially motivated intent to harm Arbery.
- Greg and Travis McMichael, along with their neighbor William “Roddy” Bryan, pursued and shot Arbery in February 2020.
Lawyers have told a U.S. appeals court that three white men chased Ahmaud Arbery through the streets of a Georgia subdivision in a pickup truck, and one of them killed the black man with a shotgun as he ran toward them. He is asking that his hate crime conviction be thrown out.
A panel of judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in the case, which comes in the wake of nationwide outcry over Arbery’s death. Lawyers for the white men argue that evidence of racist comments they have made in the past does not prove intent to cause racist harm.
On February 23, 2020, father and son Greg and Travis McMichael spotted a 25-year-old man running through their neighborhood on the outskirts of the port city of Brunswick, and armed themselves with guns, they chased Arbery in their car. A neighbor, William “Roddy” Bryan, joined in the chase in his truck and recorded on his cellphone the footage of Travis McMichael shooting and killing Arbery in the street.
Ahmaud Arbery case: Georgia man sentenced for murder of unarmed black man in 2020
More than two months passed without an arrest, until graphic video of Brian’s murder leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Indictments soon followed.
This photo combination shows, from left, Travis McMichael, William “Roddy” Bryan, and Gregory McMichael during their trial at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia. The three are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to throw out their hate crime convictions in the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery. (AP Photo/Pool, File)
All three were convicted of murder in Georgia state court in late 2021. After a second trial in federal court in early 2022, a jury found the three men guilty of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping, saying the men targeted Arbery because he was Black. I concluded.
Greg McMichael and Brian’s attorneys said in legal briefs filed ahead of arguments in the appellate court that prosecutors used more than two dozen social media posts and text messages, and three more. He cited witness testimony showing that all of the people used racial slurs and other forms of derogatory language. black race.
Ahmaud Arbery trial verdict: Travis McMichael guilty on all counts
Bryan’s attorney, Pete Theodosion, said Bryan’s past racist comments infuriated jurors, but he could not prove that Arbery was pursued because of his race. Greg McMichael’s attorney, AJ Balbo, said Arbery was pursued because three people mistakenly identified him as a fugitive criminal.
Greg McMichael said he started chasing Arbery when he ran past his home and recognized the young black man from security camera footage showing him breaking into a house next door that was under construction last month. Stated. None of the videos showed him stealing, and Arbery was unarmed and had no stolen property when he was killed.
Prosecutors said in a brief that trial evidence showed that “long-standing hatred and prejudice against black people” influenced the defendants’ belief that Arbery was committing the crime.
In Travis McMichael’s appeal, attorney Amy Lee Copeland did not challenge the jury’s finding that he was motivated by racism. The social media evidence included comments Travis McMichael posted on Facebook in 2018 about a video of a black man pranking a white man. He used an expletive and racial slur, writing, “I would kill it…”
Instead, Mr. Copeland sued on a legal technicality. She said prosecutors could not prove that the Satilla Shores street where Arbery was killed was a public road, as described in the indictment used to indict the men.
Mr. Copeland cited records from a 1958 Glynn County Commission meeting in which he refused to take ownership of the street from the developer of the subdivision. At trial, prosecutors demonstrated that the roads were maintained by the county government based on service call records and testimony from county employees.
Lawyers for the three men also made technical arguments to overturn the attempted kidnapping conviction. Prosecutors argued the charges were valid because the men used a pickup truck to stop Arbery from fleeing the neighborhood.
Defense attorneys say the charges are unfair because their clients were not trying to capture Arbery for ransom or other benefits and the truck was not used as a “vehicle of interstate commerce.” he claimed. Both are necessary elements for attempted kidnapping to become a federal crime.
Other federal appeals courts have ruled that the car used in the kidnapping qualifies as a means of interstate commerce, prosecutors said. And the benefit they were seeking, they said, was “to satisfy a personal desire to dispense vigilante justice.”
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The trial judge sentenced the McMichaels to life in prison for their hate crime convictions, plus an additional 10 years for Travis McMichael and seven years for his father for brandishing a firearm while committing a violent crime. He announced. Because Brian was unarmed and had saved cellphone video, which was key evidence, he received a light sentence of 35 years in prison for the hate crime.
All three were also sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted kidnapping, but the judge ordered that time to overlap with the hate crime sentence.
If the U.S. Court of Appeals overturns the federal conviction, both Mr. McMichaels and Mr. Bryan will remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in Georgia state prisons for murder, and a motion for a new state trial is pending before a judge.
