The three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man slain while out for a jog in 2020, are appealing their federal hate crime convictions.
On Wednesday (March 27), attorneys for Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William Bryan appeared in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia to appeal their hate crime convictions in Arbery’s death, per the Independent.
The appeal attempt comes after the McMichaels grabbed guns and chased after Arbery in a truck while he was jogging in their Brunswick, Georgia neighborhood on February 23, 2020. Bryan joined the chase in his own truck, blocked Arbery’s escape, and recorded as Travis McMichael shot Arbery at close range.
Attorneys for the McMichaels and Bryan argued that their pursuit wasn’t race-based but was spurred out of suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood. Federal prosecutors, however, provided evidence that they said proved the men killed Arbery out of racial animus, which included their repeated use of racial slurs and discriminatory characterization of alleged Black criminals.
In state court, the three men were convicted of murder in 2021. A federal jury convicted the group of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping in 2022.
Bryan and the McMichaels’ lawyers argued in their appeal that clients’ racist comments didn’t prove they murdered Arbery because of his race. J Pete Theodocion, Bryan’s attorney, claimed that racist messages included in the trial had a “prejudicial effect” on the jury.
Amy Copeland, Travis McMichael’s lawyer, argued his appeal on a technicality, saying that prosecutors incorrectly labeled the street Arbery was killed on as a “public street” in their indictment.
The McMichaels are currently facing two concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole while Bryan is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
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