Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were found guilty of interference of rights, a federal hate crime; and attempted kidnapping.
Arbery’s relatives held each other and cried — and several jurors wiped tears away from their own faces — as Tuesday’s verdicts were read in the federal courtroom in Brunswick.
Outside the courthouse, Arbery family attorney Ben Crump took the hands of Arbery’s mother Wanda Cooper-Jones and father Marcus Arbery Sr. and raised them in victory.
“Thank God for this good morning, that Wanda and Marcus have prayed for. It is because of their conviction to get full justice, not partial justice … (that) we get to celebrate this moment,” Crump told reporters.
Cooper-Jones said that she spoke to federal prosecutors and “begged them” to not take the plea deal in the case, and “they ignored my cry.”
“What we got today, we wouldn’t have gotten today if it was not for the fight that the family put up,” Cooper-Jones said. “What the (Department of Justice) did today, they were made to do today.”
US Attorney General Merrick Garland — responding in Washington Tuesday to a reporter’s question about Cooper-Jones’ statement — appeared to choke up as he answered.
“I cannot imagine the pain that a mother feels to have her son run down, and then gunned down, while taking a jog on a public street,” Garland said at a Justice Department news conference. “My heart goes out to her and to the family. That’s really all I can say about this.”
Before taking that question, Garland thanked prosecutors for their work on the case, and said “no one should fear that if they go out for a run, they will be targeted and killed because of the color of their skin.”
“Although we welcome the jury’s verdict, the only acceptable outcome in this matter would have been Mr. Arbery returning safely to his loved ones two years ago. … Ahmaud Arbery should be alive today,” Garland said.
Crump said he and the family plans to bring a civil suit once the criminal proceedings have concluded.
Additionally Tuesday, Travis McMichael, 36, who fatally shot Arbery, was also found guilty on a charge of using and carrying a Remington shotgun while his father, Gregory, 66, was found guilty of using and carrying a .357 Magnum revolver.
For the federal convictions, the three men could now receive up to life in prison and steep fines, on top of the life sentences they received for their previous murder convictions. Sentencing will be scheduled after pre-sentencing reports are filed, the judge said.
When the verdict was read, the three defendants gave no discernible reaction. Leigh McMichael, mother of Travis McMichael and wife of Gregory McMichael, was in the courtroom and remained stoic.
Tuesday’s verdict came after more than three hours of deliberations that started Monday, and after days of testimony last week.
Prosecutor: Defendants did not see Arbery ‘as a fellow human being’
During closing rebuttal arguments on Monday, prosecutor Tara Lyons emphasized the state’s position that Arbery was killed because he was Black.
“The three defendants did not see 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery as a fellow human being,” Lyons said.
Defense attorneys didn’t deny their clients used offensive language, but argued their actions toward Arbery were not due to his race.
The Satilla Shores neighborhood is less than 2 miles from the home where he lived with his mother, authorities have said.
The McMichaels were arrested May 7, 2020, and Bryan was taken into custody two weeks later. The case soon dovetailed with the killings of three Black people — Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta — redoubling angst over racial injustice and civil unrest nationwide.
Closing statements wrapped on Monday
Prosecutor Christopher J. Perras spoke at the start of the prosecution’s closing arguments Monday, going through evidence presented in trial, including Facebook posts made by Greg McMichael, texts and posts by Travis McMichael and Bryan’s use of a derogatory phrase in messages to friends.
“This wasn’t about trespassing. This wasn’t about neighborhood crimes, either. It was about race — racial assumptions, racial resentment, and racial anger,” Perras said.
Perras argued Bryan’s pursuit of Arbery — after seeing Arbery running from the McMichaels’ truck — was based on race, citing testimony that Bryan didn’t know precisely what was happening or asked what the pursuit was about.
“He didn’t ask Ahmaud, ‘Are you OK?’ … (He assumed) the Black man was in the wrong and the White guys were in the right. … That’s how hard-wired his racial assumptions were,” Perras said.
Defense attorneys on behalf of each of the three men also spoke Monday in closing remarks, pushing back against prosecutors’ arguments.
J. Pete Theodocion, a defense attorney for Bryan, countered that Arbery never asked for help, and said Bryan would have joined the pursuit regardless of Arbery’s race. What Bryan saw was two people — in a truck he recognized from the neighborhood — asking Arbery to stop, and Arbery wasn’t stopping.
“It was entirely reasonable” to assume the person being chased did something wrong, Theodocion said. Bryan “absolutely” had “enough evidence” to follow in his own vehicle at a slow speed and record video, the lawyer said.
Amy Copeland, a defense attorney for Travis McMichael, said there is no evidence her client used a racial slur on the day Arbery was murdered, no evidence he was part of a hate group, no evidence of racial violence committed by McMichael and no evidence he talked about Arbery’s death in racial terms.
The defense attorney for Greg McMichael, attorney A.J. Balbo, told the jury his client had tenants who were people of color.
“Those are his private facilities,” Balbo said. “Gregory McMichael invited people of color, African Americans to make use of his private facilities.”
Previous testimony
In closing arguments Monday, Perras said Arbery’s reason for being there was irrelevant to the legality of the defendants’ pursuit of him.
But he stressed the property owner’s testimony that nothing was taken, and that video never showed anything taken.
“Maybe Ahmaud was interested in seeing the progress … (or) to clear his mind … to get away from it all. … We’ll never know for sure” because he was killed, Perras said.
CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin, Ryan Young, Pamela Kirkland, Kevin Conlon, Maria Cartaya, Alta Spells, Gregory Lemos and Mike Hayes contributed to this report.
