Newsdeck

Arbery murder trial

Arbery’s Killers Found Guilty of Murder by a Georgia Jury

BRUNSWICK, GA - JUNE 04: Demonstrators march by a mural of Ahmaud Arbery after a court appearance by Gregory and Travis McMichael, two suspects in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, on June 4, 2020 in Brunswick, Georgia. Arbery was killed on February 23. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) Photographer: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

(Bloomberg) -- All three of the White men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery last year were convicted of murder by a jury in Georgia.

By Erik Larson

Word Count: 952
Someone in the courtroom let out a whoop as the first guilty verdict was read out by the judge, who stopped and asked for quiet. The jury’s finding follows a two-week trial over the February 2020 shooting, which was captured on video.

Prosecutors said 25-year-old Arbery was murdered “because he was a Black man running down the street,” echoing a 911 call one of the defendants made. Arbery’s name became a rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the U.S. last year.

Lawyers for the three accused said Arbery, who was unarmed, was shot in self-defense after he resisted the men’s attempt to carry out a citizen’s arrest under state law. Prosecutors said that defense was untenable because it was the three defendants who initiated the conflict by chasing Arbery down with a shotgun and their two pickup trucks.

The verdict comes less than a week after a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin, acquitted 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges in the shooting deaths of two men and the wounding of a third at a chaotic BLM protest last year. Rittenhouse also claimed self-defense in his case, in which all the main figures were White. That acquittal spurred small protests in several U.S. cities.

Cameras outside the Georgia courthouse captured a small crowd celebrating the verdict and repeating a chant that was often heard during the BLM protests, with one person shouting “Say his name,” and the crowd responding with “Ahmaud Arbery.”

“This verdict was necessary,” Margaret Huang, chief executive officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an emailed statement. “Through this conviction, the criminal justice system has begun to address the pervasive inequities that exist when it comes to the treatment of Black and brown people. However, the system and those responsible for prosecuting such crimes must face the reality that, while there was video documentation of this murder, that is not the case for most crimes that occur in our country.”

Federal Charges

Prosecutors charged all three of the men in Georgia with murder and multiple other counts. Travis McMichael fired three blasts from a shotgun in a struggle with Arbery after a five-minute chase. His father, Greg McMichael, joined his son in the pursuit, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan helped trap Arbery with his vehicle, the state said.

“It was a completely predictable verdict,” said Alan Dershowitz, former professor at Harvard Law School. “It was the right verdict. And I’m glad Georgia has now changed its law making it much harder to engage in citizen’s arrest. This was pure vigilante justice.”

Dershowitz said the verdict “shows that American juries are capable of distinguishing cases. They were right on the Rittenhouse case and right on this case — and the cases are completely different. In Rittenhouse, there was genuine fear of bodily harm. In this case there was none.”

The nine charges in Georgia included malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Malice or felony murder can carry a death sentence, though the state didn’t seek it. The minimum penalty is life in prison, but the judge could offer a chance for parole, available after 30 years behind bars. Aggravated assault is punishable by one to 20 years; false imprisonment, one to 10 years.

Travis McMichael was found guilty on all charges. Greg McMichael was found not guilty of malice murder, the most serious charge, and Bryan was found not guilty of malice murder, one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. The defendants also face federal charges for hate crimes and attempted kidnapping in Arbery’s death.

The racially charged Georgia case included evidence of how neighbors responded to reports on social media that a Black man had been seen in the area, repeatedly entering the site of a home under construction. But others had as well, including White onlookers, and Arbery didn’t take or damage anything.

Read More: Arbery’s Killing Was Self-Defense or Murder, Jurors Are Told 

Travis McMichael’s lawyer Jason Sheffield told the panel of 11 White jurors and one person of color during his closing argument that there was “overwhelming evidence” his client feared Arbery would disarm him in the moments before he fired the shotgun.

‘Didn’t Live There’

Greg McMichael’s lawyer used her closing to portray a community of “neighbors who cared for each other” banding together in a crisis to carry out the citizen’s arrest of a suspicious character. Arbery “didn’t live there, he didn’t work there, he didn’t have friends there,” and was “a recurring nighttime intruder,” Laura Hogue told the panel.

Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough asked the jury, “What could Roddie Bryan have done to stop” the shooting, saying he didn’t know that Travis McMichael would fire his gun.

Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Linda Dunikoski stressed that on the day the three went after Arbery they had no way of knowing he’d once again entered the construction site, nor did they announce a citizen’s arrest. She told the jury the defendants “made assumptions based on gossip and rumors” about break-ins in the neighborhood, with no “probable cause that a crime had been committed.”

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley denied numerous requests for a mistrial, including one by Gough, who argued that the case should be tossed out because Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III had joined hundreds of Black pastors in protest at the courthouse, calling it an attempt to sway the jury.

Read More

 

(Updates with crowd response in fifth paragraph.)

–With assistance from Anthony Lin and Joe Schneider.

© 2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.