A U.S. federal appeals court has affirmed the hate crime convictions of three white individuals who pursued Ahmaud Arbery in 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’ three-judge panel took more than a year to make the decision after the defendants’ lawyers requested in March 2024 to overturn the case, arguing that the men’s history of racist text messages and social media posts did not prove they targeted Arbery based on his race.
Prosecutors used these posts and messages in 2022 to convince a jury that Arbery’s killing stemmed from “pent-up racial anger.” The appellate panel, in a ruling composed by Judge Elizabeth L. Branch, stated that prosecutors demonstrated at the trial that each defendant harbored deep-seated bias, providing enough evidence for a reasonable juror to conclude that Arbery’s race was the decisive factor in the fatal pursuit through the neighborhood.
Even if the appeals judges had nullified their hate crime convictions, the trio would not have been immediately released from prison, as they are already serving life sentences for murder following convictions in a Georgia state court.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and pursued 25-year-old Arbery in a pickup truck after seeing him running in their neighborhood near Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William (Roddie) Bryan, joined the pursuit and recorded a cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range.
Arrests were not made for over two months until Bryan’s video of the killing surfaced online, prompting the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to take over the case amid national outrage over Arbery’s death as part of a broader outcry against racial injustice. Subsequent charges were brought.
All three men were convicted of murder by a state court in late 2021. After a second trial in U.S. District Court in early 2022, a jury found the trio guilty of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.
In their federal appeals, Bryan and Greg McMichael’s lawyers criticized the prosecutors’ use of numerous social media posts, text messages, and witness accounts showing the men using racist language. Bryan’s attorney contended that these statements were so offensive that the jury was swayed without proof of a racist intent to harm Arbery.
The 11th Circuit judges dismissed these arguments, stating that there was no indication that Arbery had committed any crimes in the neighborhood, as he was unarmed and possessed no stolen items when he was killed.
Travis McMichael’s attorney did not contest the jury’s conclusion that his client’s actions were motivated by racism. Instead, she based her appeal on legal technicalities, arguing that prosecutors failed to demonstrate that the streets where the incident occurred were public roads, as specified in the indictment. This argument was also rejected by the 11th Circuit.
The trial judge sentenced both McMichaels to life in prison for their hate crime convictions, along with additional time — 10 years for Travis McMichael and seven years for his father — for using firearms during violent crimes. Bryan received a lesser hate crime sentence of 35 years due in part to his lack of a weapon and for preserving the critical cellphone video.
