ATLANTA (CN) — The three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery argued to a federal appeals court Wednesday that they did not chase the 25-year-old Black man down the streets of a Georgia subdivision because of his race or attempt to kidnap him.
In February 2022, a jury found Travis McMichael; his father, Greg McMichael; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan guilty of committing a federal hate crime and attempted kidnapping. All three men had been convicted of murder in a Georgia state court and given life sentences in late 2021.
They argued to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that evidence of past racist comments they made was not sufficient to prove a racist intent to harm Arbery.
Bryan’s attorney, Pete Theodocion, said Bryan’s past racist statements inflamed the jury while failing to prove that the men pursued Arbery because of his race.
During the trial, the government presented evidence of more than two dozen instances where Travis McMichael and Bryan used racial slurs in text messages and social media posts. An analysis of Bryan's cell phone uncovered frequent usage of slurs and messages sent four days before Arbery’s killing.
“He’d fit right in with the monkeys,” Bryan messaged a friend, discussing his daughter's Black boyfriend.
Lawyers also presented evidence of Gregory McMichael speaking negatively about a deceased civil rights activist, stating that “‘all those Blacks are nothing but trouble; I wish they would all die.’"
A.J. Balbo, Greg McMichael’s lawyer, said that instead the men believed they saw security footage of Arbery entering a house under construction and mistakenly thought he was a fleeing criminal.
However, none of the footage showed him stealing anything. Arbery was unarmed with no stolen property on him when he was murdered.
If Arbery had been a 60-year-old Black man running down the neighborhood streets, the men wouldn't have pursued him, Balbo told the circuit judges.
The three men also argued that the attempted kidnapping charges should be tossed because the streets of the neighborhood were not a public road.
But U.S. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch seemed unpersuaded by the argument, noting that the government provided plenty of evidence, including testimony from county commissioners, to show that the streets were administered by the county.
Branch and a fellow Donald Trump appointee, U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant, did not seem persuaded by Theodocion's argument that the government had to prove Arbery was held against his will for a "personal benefit."
"Whether it's vigilantism or to be the neighborhood hero, how is that any different?" Branch asked the attorney.
Travis McMichael's attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, also said that although McMichael’s truck was used as a barricade to detain Arbery, it should not be considered an "instrumentality of interstate commerce" in the commission of attempted kidnapping.
Greg McMichael initiated the chase when Arbery ran past his home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia, less than 2 miles from Arbery's own home, on Feb. 23, 2020. McMichael and his son grabbed their guns and began chasing Arbery in a pickup.
Bryan joined the pursuit in his truck, drove toward Arbery and “cut him off pretty good,” as Bryan later told the police. Both trucks eventually surrounded Arbery, and as Gregory McMichael later told the police, Arbery was “trapped like a rat.”
The McMichaels pointed their guns at Arbery and yelled at him to get on the ground. Arbery then tried to grab Travis’ shotgun and was shot three times. Critically wounded, Arbery collapsed face first and eventually bled to death in the street. Neither the McMichaels nor Bryan tried to help Arbery while he was still alive.
More than two months passed without arrests, until Bryan’s graphic video of the killing leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police.
"Ahmaud Arbery would be alive today had he not been a Black man running on the public streets of Satilla Shores," U.S. Attorney Brant Levine told the court.
The three-judge circuit panel was rounded out by U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, a Joe Biden appointee sitting in from the Northern District Court of Georgia. The panel did not signal when they intend to issue a ruling.
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