The three men who were convicted last year of killing 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty in a separate federal hate crimes trial on Tuesday.
After a day of deliberation, a Georgia jury found that Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William “Roddy” Bryant were guilty of hate crimes, attempted kidnapping and the use of a firearm to commit a crime.
“The jury was made up of eight White people, three Black people and one Hispanic person,” notes CBS News, adding:
Arbery was shot and killed in Brunswick, Georgia, in February 2020. Cellphone video of the incident showed the McMichaels chasing Arbery as he jogged through the neighborhood. The two men cornered the 25-year-old with their pickup truck before Travis McMichael shot Arbery with a shotgun. Bryan helped chase Arbery and recorded the shooting on his cellphone.
The three killers were sentenced to life in prison following a state trial last year. The federal government pursued additional charges with the intention of proving that the murder was racially motivated. NBC News explains:
Federal prosecutors spent a week working to establish that Arbery’s murder was driven by the three men’s racial bias and their animus toward Black people.
Witnesses called included an FBI analyst who had combed through the three men’s social media and messaging history, where she found messages, videos and memes that appeared to show that the three men held strong prejudices against Black people.
The defense said the messages and social media posts were taken out of context.
Friday was the final day and perhaps the most jarring for the jury, as prosecutors called neighbors and former co-workers of the McMichaels, who all testified that the father and son made troubling racist jokes, rants and statements and were open about their negative feelings toward Black people.
The New York Times reports:
The men now face up to life in prison for the federal crimes, on top of the life sentences they received earlier this year in state court after being convicted of Mr. Arbery’s murder, with only Mr. Bryan eligible for parole. The federal convictions ensure that the defendants will receive significant prison time even if their state convictions are overturned or their sentences reduced on appeal.
The victory will also be important, symbolically and emotionally, for Mr. Arbery’s family, as well as other observers who believed that the pursuit and fatal shooting of Mr. Arbery on a Sunday afternoon in February 2020 amounted to what the Rev. Al Sharpton called “a lynching in the 21st Century.”
The Times adds:
In January, the McMichaels appeared to be heading off the possibility of going through a federal trial, having reached plea deals with the U.S. Department of Justice in which they would have been sentenced to 30-year sentences to run concurrent with their state sentences. However, Mr. Arbery’s parents came to court and pleaded for U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to reject the deals, in part because they would have allowed the men to spend the bulk of their sentences in the federal prison system, which is generally thought to be a less harsh environment than the Georgia state system. Judge Wood ended up rejecting the pleas.
After Tuesday’s verdict, Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, expressed gratitude to the DOJ, but also criticized their initial decision to accept a plea deal.
“I now want to address the members of the DOJ. I’m very thankful that you guys brought these charges of hate crime, but back on January 31, you guys accepted a plea deal with these three murderers who took my son’s life,” Cooper-Jones said.
“They ignored my cry. I begged them,” Cooper-Jones added. “Even after the family stood before the judge and asked them, asked the judge to not take this plea deal, the lead prosecutor, Tara Lyons, stood up and asked the judge to ignore the family’s cry. That’s not justice for Ahmaud.”
“What the DOJ did today, they were made to do today. It wasn’t because of what they wanted to do. They were made to do their job today” she said.
Wednesday, February 23rd, will be the second anniversary of Arbery’s murder.
