Appeals Court Upholds Hate Crime Convictions in Ahmaud Arbery Case
A federal appeals court has upheld the hate crime convictions of three white men who pursued Ahmaud Arbery through their Georgia neighborhood with pickup trucks before one of them fatally shot the Black man with a shotgun. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions after the defendants' attorneys sought to overturn the case, arguing that the men's racist text messages and social media posts did not prove they targeted Arbery because of his race.
Federal prosecutors used the defendants' history of racist posts and messages to argue that Arbery's killing was driven by racial animosity. Despite the appeals court's decision, the men, who are already serving life sentences for murder in a Georgia state court, would not have been immediately released from prison even if their hate crime convictions had been overturned.
Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son duo, armed themselves and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after seeing him running in their neighborhood near Brunswick on February 23, 2020. A neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, joined the pursuit and filmed Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range. The men were not arrested until more than two months later when Bryan's video of the killing surfaced online, prompting a national outcry over racial injustice.
Following Arbery's death, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case, leading to charges against all three men. They were convicted of murder in a state court in late 2021 and later found guilty of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping in a federal trial in early 2022.
The attorney for Greg McMichael, A.J. Balbo, chose not to comment on the appeals court's ruling, while lawyers for Bryan and Travis McMichael did not respond to requests for comment. The three men remain incarcerated for their roles in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.