The three white men who chased down Ahmaud Arbery in a pickup truck and then murdered him, have asked a federal appeals court to toss their hate crime convictions.
Attorneys for Gregory McMichael, his son, Travis, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan made the request Wednesday before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. They argued that prosecutors during the initial legal proceedings relied on their clients’ history of racist behavior and comments but failed to prove they killed Arbery because he was Black.
What’s more, the racist views evidenced by the men’s prior text messages and social media posts, they said, informed the mistaken assumption that Arbery was a fleeing criminal.
“At the end of the day, this issue isn’t about the racism of these defendants,” A.J. Balbo, a lawyer representing the elder McMichael, told the three-judge panel.
Arbery was out for a run in the Satilla Shores neighborhood — a mostly white, affluent community just outside Brunswick — when he was confronted by the trio on the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2020. Authorities said Travis and his father, who is an ex-cop, armed themselves and then chased Arbery in a pickup truck while Bryan followed in a separate vehicle and recorded the deadly interaction.
The McMichaels later told authorities they believed 25-year-old Arbery was a burglar and that they were acting in self-defense. They claimed Travis McMichael only opened fire after Arbery threw several punches in his direction and attempted to reach for the shotgun.
No arrests were made until months later, triggering widespread backlash only further fueled by clips of the fatal incident, which later leaked online
In 2021, all three men were convicted of murder in a Georgia state court and sentenced to life in prison. The following year, a federal jury convicted the trio of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.
“The hate-fueled violence the defendants inflicted on Ahmaud is precisely the type of conduct that Congress targeted when it passed the Civil Rights Act,” said Brant Levine, an attorney for the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
The judge did provide a timeline for when they would provide their ruling.
With News Wire Services
