ATLANTA (AP) — The killing was captured on video and shared around the world: Ahmaud Arbery running toward and then around an idling pickup truck before its driver blasted him at close range with a shotgun.
Soon after Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020, his father, Greg McMichael, told police how the pair had armed themselves, chased the young Black man and trapped him “like a rat.” Neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan told officers he joined the pursuit and helped cut off Arbery’s escape.
After a 13-day trial at the Glynn County courthouse in coastal Georgia, a disproportionately white jury found the three white men guilty of murder.
Each man was also convicted on lesser charges.
ON WHAT CHARGES WAS EACH MAN CONVICTED?
A nine-count indictment charged all three men with one count of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony, in this case false imprisonment.
Travis McMichael was convicted of all nine charges. Greg McMichael was convicted of all charges except malice murder. Bryan was convicted of two counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony.
HOW MUCH PRISON TIME ARE THEY FACING?
Malice and felony murder convictions both carry a minimum penalty of life in prison. The judge decides whether that comes with or without the possibility of parole. Even if the possibility of parole is granted, a person convicted of murder must serve 30 years before becoming eligible. Multiple murder convictions are merged for the purposes of sentencing.
Murder can also be punishable by death in Georgia if the killing meets certain criteria and the prosecutor chooses to seek the death penalty. Prosecutors in this case did not.
Each count of aggravated assault carries a prison term of at least one year but not more than 20 years. False imprisonment is punishable by a sentence of one to 10 years in prison.
WHEN WILL THEY BE SENTENCED?
That’s not clear yet. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley will set a sentencing date.
WILL THERE BE APPEALS?
Appeals are almost certain in this case, said University of Georgia law professor emeritus Ron Carlson.
One likely basis for appeal could be the exclusion of certain evidence from the trial, he said. Defense attorneys had sought to introduce evidence of Arbery’s criminal record, records on his mental health and the fact that he was on probation. They also wanted to have a use-of-force expert testify. But the judge ruled against admitting any of that evidence.
“They’ll argue that relevant evidence helpful to the defense was excluded by the trial judge and that was an error,” Carlson said.
It’s also possible that appellate attorneys could find other grounds for appeal after scouring transcripts and jury instructions, and speaking with jurors.
Robert Rubin and Jason Sheffield, attorneys for Travis McMichael, said after the verdict that they plan to appeal. Sheffield said they had no second thoughts about trying the case in the community where Arbery was killed rather than seeking to move it elsewhere. But he said, “It could certainly become a part of the appeal.”
AREN’T THERE STILL FEDERAL CHARGES PENDING?
Yes. The McMichaels and Bryan still face federal charges.
Months before the three stood trial on state murder charges, a federal grand jury in April indicted them on hate crimes charges.
It’s an entirely separate case that’s not affected by the state trial’s outcome.
U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood has scheduled jury selection in the federal trial to start Feb. 7.
All three men are charged with one count of interference with civil rights and attempted kidnapping.
The McMichaels were also charged with using, carrying and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence.
The federal indictment says the men targeted Arbery because he was Black.
, K. Brumback, November 24, 2021
Their own words may have doomed men who killed Ahmaud Arbery
The video of Ahmaud Arbery's shotgun death was a shocking piece of evidence that suddenly brought the Black man's killing into the national consciousness.
But the murder convictions of the three white men who chased him may have been secured as much by their own words to investigators the day of the shooting.
Greg McMichael, who was in the bed of a pickup truck when his son killed Arbery, told police the Black man "was trapped like a rat" and he told Arbery: "Stop, or I’ll blow your f---ing head off!”
Statements like that allowed prosecutors to give context to the short video that didn't show the entire shooting and had little of the five minutes that the men chased Arbery.
“It’s those statements that screwed the defense more than the video. If they had never talked to police and they said we saw him taking something from the property and running — there’s an OK shot the jury might have acquitted them," said appellate attorney Andrew Fleischman, who followed the trial from Atlanta.
WHAT THEY SAID:
The shooter, Travis McMichael, his dad, Greg McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan all spoke extensively and candidly with Glynn County investigators just hours after Arbery was killed in their Brunswick, Georgia, neighborhood in February 2020.
They told police they weren’t sure exactly what Arbery had done wrong, which would later be a big blow to their defense that they were making a citizen's arrest.
The citizen's arrest law, largely repealed by lawmakers after Arbery's death, required a person to see or have immediate knowledge of a crime being committed or have reasonable suspicion that someone is fleeing a felony in order to justify a citizen’s arrest.
“I don’t think the guy has actually stolen anything out of there, or if he did it was early in the process. But he keeps going back over and over again to this damn house," Greg McMichael said, according to a transcript of the interview that Glynn County police Sgt. Roderic Nohilly read in court.
Bryan was on his front porch when he saw Arbery run past with the McMichaels’ truck close behind. He told police he didn’t recognize any of them, or know what prompted the chase, but still joined in after calling out: “Y’all got him?”
In an interview with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Bryan said he wanted to take a photo of Arbery to show police, but couldn’t point to any crimes Arbery had committed.
“I figured he had done something wrong,” Bryan said. “I didn’t know for sure.”
The statements allowed prosecutor Linda Dunikoski to methodically pick apart the defense's arguments.
“Nobody was talking about a citizen’s arrest. And I don’t mean using the magic words ‘citizen’s arrest.’ I mean no one’s saying, ‘We saw the guy commit a burglary and we were going to hold on to him so we could turn him over to police because he committed this crime,'" Atlanta defense attorney Page Pate said.
DEFENSE CASE
That left the attorneys for the men to struggle to explain away their statements.
“The evidence suggests that Roddie Bryan legitimately struggles to find the right words,” Bryan's lawyer, Kevin Gough, told jurors in his closing argument Monday.
Travis McMichael, testifying in his own defense, said he was in shock when he first spoke to police, calling the shooting the most traumatic event of his life.
Greg McMichael's lawyer suggested maybe he never shouted at Arbery: "Stop, or I’ll blow your f---ing head off” like he told police because the remark wasn’t recorded on the cellphone video of the shooting or the 911 call Greg McMichael made to police. Both of those recordings covered only a small part of the five-minute chase that ended in Arbery’s death.
“You only have a handful of defenses to deal with what is basically a confession,” Pate said.
FAMILIAR FACES
Greg McMichael was a former investigator in the Glynn County district attorney's office and may have felt like he could navigate trouble among his acquaintances and friends.
It worked for a while. The men weren't charged for more than two months — only after the video of the shooting surfaced and the case was turned over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. State agents charged the men two days later.
“This is just a case of a client who talked himself out of trouble and those statements later turned out to put him back into it,” Fleischman said.
Phone records show Greg McMichael called his former boss, District Attorney Jackie Johnson, just after the shooting. Johnson handed off the case to an out-of-town prosecutor, who cited the citizen's arrest law in recommending no charges. A third prosecutor was reviewing the case when the video surfaced and handed it off to the state.
Johnson was indicted on a felony charge of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of obstructing police for her role in the investigation. Authorities have released little information on Johnson's actions other than to say she never disclosed that she asked the second prosecutor to advise police in the immediate aftermath of Arbery’s killing.
Source: The Associated Press, Staff, November 25, 2021
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
