Jury in Ahmaud Arbery hate crimes trial begins deliberations

Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A jury in the federal hate crimes trial of three men convicted last year in the death of Ahmaud Arbery was excused for the day after beginning deliberations on Monday.

During closing arguments, prosecutors said the trio were motivated by "racial assumptions, racial resentment and racial anger" because Arbery was Black, while attorneys for the three men -- Greg and Travis McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan -- said they only pursued Arbery because they believed he was committing a crime.

The closing arguments come nearly two years after the three men chased Arbery in a Brunswick, Ga., neighborhood after suspecting him of home invasions. Federal prosecutors used texts, social media posts and witnesses in an effort to establish a racial motivation for the attack against Arbery.

Prosecutor Christopher J. Perras said the men saw Arbery, a Black man, in their neighborhood and "assumed the worst of him."

"They chose to act on that assumption when they hunted Ahmaud down like an animal and shot him and let him die in the streets like an animal," Perras said.

He called on the jury -- made up of eight White people, three Black people and one Hispanic person -- to "hold these men accountable not only for what they did, but for why they did it."

Perras also asserted the government does not need to prove the men were motivated by hatred of Black people, but rather that Arbery's race led to a crime that would not have happened if he was not Black.

Gregory McMichael's lawyer, A.J. Balbo said his client chased down Arbery because he matched the description of a person -- later identified as Arbery -- seen in surveillance video of an under construction house in the neighborhood.

"If he sees an African American man who was bald, 6 feet, 350 pounds, mid-40s with no tattoos and, instead of a two-to-three-inch haircut, has a six-inch mohawk -- if that's who runs past, does Greg McMichael put aside his boat cushions and follow that person?" Balbo said. "No. No, he doesn't."

In her closing statement, Amy Copeland, Travis McMichael's defense attorney, said there was no evidence that he used a slur on the day of Arbery's killing, nor that he was part of a hate group, committed racial violence or talked about Arbery's death in racial terms.

Bryan's lawyer, Pete Theodocion, said Bryan only joined the chase because he saw two people in a truck he recognized from the neighborhood asking Arbery to stop and that Arbery was not complying, saying "it was entirely reasonable" to assume the person being chased had done something wrong.

He also responded to evidence brought up by prosecutors that Bryan had objected to his daughter dating a Black man days before the shooting, stating his client was "not obsessed by race."

"We can hate these opinions; we can be repulsed by them," Theodocion said. "But he has not shown, through this evidence, that he has a hatred of African Americans or a want of violence to be caused to them or a joy of violence happening to them. He is not one of those people."

The defense for called one witness before resting their case last week.

The McMichaels and Bryan are also charged with attempted kidnapping while the McMichaels are charged with one count each of using a weapon during a violent crime. They could face life in prison if convicted.

The McMichaels had originally reached a plea deal in the federal case before U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Wood rejected it late January. The deal would have allowed them to serve their time in federal prison for 30 years instead of state prison.

The Arbery family spoke out against those terms, saying they were reached without any consultation with them. The McMichaels are serving life sentences in Georgia state prison without parole plus 20 years for shooting Arbery. Bryan received life in prison with the possibility of parole.