- Attorneys representing three men are urging a U.S. appeals court to invalidate hate crime convictions related to the chase and killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
- The lawyers say that evidence of past racist remarks made by the men does not prove a racially motivated intent to harm Arbery.
- Greg and Travis McMichael, along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, pursued and fatally shot Arbery in February 2020.
Attorneys are asking a U.S. appeals court to throw out the hate crime convictions of three white men who used pickup trucks to chase Ahmaud Arbery through the streets of a Georgia subdivision before one of them killed the running Black man with a shotgun.
A panel of judges from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that followed a national outcry over Arbery’s death. The white men’s lawyers argue that evidence of past racist comments they made didn’t prove a racist intent to harm.
On Feb. 23, 2020, father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and drove in pursuit of Arbery after spotting the 25-year-old man running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery in the street.
AHMAUD ARBERY CASE: GEORGIA MEN SENTENCED IN 2020 MURDER OF UNARMED BLACK MAN
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. Charges soon followed.
All three men were convicted of murder in a Georgia state court in late 2021. After a second trial in early 2022 in federal court, a jury found the trio guilty of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping, concluding the men targeted Arbery because he was Black.
In legal briefs filed ahead of their appeals court arguments, lawyers for Greg McMichael and Bryan cited prosecutors’ use…
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