The three Georgia men convicted by the state in November for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery faced a federal trial this month on hate crime, civil rights violation and kidnapping charges, and all three men were convicted on all counts today by a jury.
A federal jury has found three White men guilty of committing a hate crime and other violations when they chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery two years ago, determining they were motivated by racial animus because he was Black.
The trial focused on a history of racist and offensive statements from Gregory McMichael, 66, Travis McMichael, 36, and William “Roddie” Bryan, 52.
Tuesday’s conviction, after just a couple of hours of jury deliberation, represents a victory for the U.S. Department of Justice, which has vowed to more aggressively prosecute hate crimes, and for civil rights groups that have demanded greater accountability in racially motivated attacks against Blacks and other minorities.
The killings of Arbery, George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, all of whom were Black, prompted mass demonstrations across the country two years ago. The charges against the McMichaels and Bryan marked the first time prosecutors charged anyone with a hate crime in connection with one of those slayings.
The jury began deliberating Monday afternoon, and adjourned after about two hours. Soon after reconvening Tuesday morning, jurors sent word they had a verdict. The found the men guilty of all charges: hate crimes and attempted kidnapping for all three defendants, and a weapons violation for the McMichaels.
All three men already had been convicted of state murder charges and sentenced to life in prison, with Bryan eligible for parole after 30 years. U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood will determine their federal sentences.
In a case that hinged on proving the defendants’ state of mind, prosecutors argued that the men’s prejudice helped explain why they erroneously viewed Arbery, 25, as a potential criminal when they cut him off in pickup trucks and threatened him with guns in a Georgia neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020.
The government presented evidence from 20 witnesses, many of whom testified about racially derogatory text messages, social media posts and remarks from the three men in which they disparaged Black people.
“All three defendants told you loud and clear, in their own words, how they feel about African Americans,” prosecutor Tara Lyons told the jury, made up of eight White people, three Black people and one Hispanic person. “Yes, race, racism, racial discrimination — those can all be very difficult topics to discuss. But the facts of this case are not difficult.”
Defense lawyers maintained that the men were trying to stop and question Arbery not because of his race, but because the McMichaels suspected him of trespassing at a neighbor’s property in their coastal Georgia subdivision.
Neighbors, including the McMichaels, had seen surveillance videos of a man, later identified as Arbery, exploring the property several times in the weeks leading up to the shooting. Gregory McMichael recognized Arbery as the man in the video as he jogged past McMichael’s house, defense lawyers said, prompting the former police officer and his son to chase Arbery in a pickup truck.
Bryan, a neighbor, joined the chase in his own truck after witnessing the commotion.
“The government hasn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt that race was a motivating factor,” Amy Lee Copeland, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, said during her closing argument.
The jury disagreed and rang all three of these bastards up.
Multiple life sentences with hopefully no hope of parole is alright with me, showing people there is a ruinous cost for taking a Black life because we matter.
Justice cannot be served here, justice would be Ahmaud Arbery still alive. Accountability and punishment is the best we can do here, and it was done.
Black Lives Matter.
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