The three white men who murdered Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery have been found guilty of all charges in their federal hate crimes trial.
Gregory McMichael, 66, Travis McMichael, 36, and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr, 52, were convicted on all counts in a federal court in Georgia on Tuesday morning, as a jury determined that they were motivated by race when they pursued and murdered the Black jogger.
All three men were found guilty of one count of interfering with Arbery’s civil rights to use a public street because of his race and one count of attempted kidnapping.
The McMichael father and son duo were also convicted of an additional firearms charge of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
US District Judge Lisa Godbey is yet to announce a sentencing date, saying it will be set once pre-sentencing reports are filed. The three men were returned to custody and told they have 14 days to file appeals or motions in the case.
Arbery’s mother Wanda Cooper-Jones told reporters outside the courtroom that the conviction was a “victory” but that she would never be able to “heal” following the murder of her son.
“I as a mom will never heal,” she said.
The conviction comes just one day ahead of the two-year anniversary of the day when the three white men chased the unarmed Black jogger in their pickup trucks and shot him dead in the street in the Satilla Shores neighbourhood in Brunswick, Georgia, back on 23 February 2020.
All three are already serving life sentences in state prison after they were found guilty of Arbery’s murder at their state trial back in November.
The federal hate crimes trial centred around the allegations that the three white men had targeted Arbery because he was Black.
The jury reached a verdict fairly quickly, with deliberations only beginning on Monday afternoon.
Closing arguments wrapped up earlier that day with the prosecution describing how the three white men had targeted the Black man because of “racial assumptions, racial resentment, and racial anger”.
“On February 23, 2020, the three defendants did not see 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery as a fellow human being,” the prosecutor said.
“This wasn’t about trespassing. It wasn’t about neighborhood crime. It was about race. Racial assumptions, racial resentment, and racial anger.
“All three defendants saw a young Black man in their neighborhood and they thought the worst of him.”
The jury – made up of eight white people, three Black people and one Hispanic person – deliberated for just over two and a half hours on Monday before they were excused.
They resumed only briefly on Tuesday morning before telling the court they had reached a verdict.
The foreperson – who was the only Black man on the jury – was seen wiping tears from his eyes after the verdict was read out to the court, tweeted WBSRadio’s Veronica Waters.
During the trial, the court heard about the racist language used by all three defendants in the lead-up to Arbery’s murder as the prosecution attempted to show that race was the motivator for their actions that day.
The court heard how Bryan referred to a Black man his daughter was dating as an “n-word” and “monkey” just days before he murdered the Black jogger.
“[She] is dating a [n-word] now,” Bryan allegedly said in a message to a friend.
Meanwhile, Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots that killed Arbery, used racial slurs in multiple social media posts and messages to friends and referred to Black people as “animals, criminals, monkeys, sub-human savages”, according to prosecutors.
In one text message read out in court, the 36-year-old used the “n-word” and spoke of his satisfaction that he didn’t work with any Black people.
“Zero [n-words] work with me. They ruin everything. That’s why I love what I do now. Not a [n-word] in sight,” he said in the message.
The court was also shown a comment he left on a Facebook video of a Black man playing a prank on a white person. “I’d kill that f***ing [n-word],” he wrote.
Gregory McMichael, meanwhile, told someone he knew while working as an investigator in the Glynn County District Attorney’s Office that “Blacks are nothing but trouble”, jurors heard in the courtroom.
His comments came in reaction to the news that civil rights leader Julian Bond had died back in 2015.
“I wish he’d been put in the ground years ago. He was nothing but trouble. Those Blacks are nothing but trouble,” Gregory McMichael allegedly said.
The defence sought to argue that, while the three men had indeed used racist language in the past, they were motivated by a desire to protect their neighbourhood and not by race when they killed the Black man.
The federal trial got off to a fraught start following some back and forth over a potential plea deal with the McMichaels.
The father and son agreed to plead guilty to hate crimes charges and be sentenced to 30 years in prison in exchange for being moved to a federal prison.
The plea agreement was condemned by Arbery’s family who said they had made it clear they do not want his killers to be able to serve their sentences in a comfier facility. Federal prisons are notoriously more comfortable, better funded and safer.
Travis McMichael had changed his plea to guilty – admitting that he chased and killed the Black 25-year-old because of his race – and his father had agreed to do the same before Judge Godbey rejected the deal, saying she was not willing to be bound by the terms of the agreement.
Travis McMichael then changed his plea back to not guilty and Gregory McMichael left his as not guilty, paving the way for them both to join Bryan at the federal trial.
Following Tuesday’s verdict, Ms Cooper-Jones condemned the actions of the DOJ over the plea agreement.
She told reporters that, while federal prosecutors had secured guilty verdicts, they only did what “they were made to do” because of the family’s fight against the plea deal.
“What the DOJ did today they were made to do today,” she said.
She addressed the Justice Department directly saying she was “very thankful” that they brought the federal hate crimes charges.
“But back on January 31 you guys accepted a plea deal with these three murderers who took my son’s life,” she said.
She told how she had met with the lead prosecutors in the case and was “begging them to please not take this plea deal”.
“They ignored my cry,” she said and had asked the judge to accept the deal anyway.
While they may be prosecutors, she said, “the one thing they didn’t have was a son that was lying in a cold grave and they still didn’t hear my cry”.
“That’s not justice for Ahmaud,” she added.
The three white men chased Arbery through the Satilla Shores neighbourhood of Georgia in their pickup trucks before Travis McMichael shot him dead in the road back on 23 February 2020.
At their sentencing on state charges in January, Travis and Gregory McMichael were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole while Bryan was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, making him eligible for release after 30 years in prison.
