“Today your son has made history, because we have people who are being held accountable for lynching a Black man in America,” Benjamin Crump, a civil attorney for Arbery’s family, told the slain man’s parents after the sentencing hearing.ĭefense attorneys during the trial contended the men pursued Arbery because they reasonably believed he had been committing burglaries in the neighborhood. The McMichaels and Bryan weren’t charged with crimes in the Black man’s killing until the shooting video became public two month later. Regardless, issues of race loomed large in the murder trial over Arbery’s death. It merely requires proving a victim was killed with malice or during the commission of another felony. Georgia law doesn’t require establishing motive to convict someone of murder. ![]() State prosecutors and investigators never mentioned that during the murder trial. Attorneys for Travis McMichael have denied he made the statement. ![]() Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Richard Dial testified in June 2020, more than a year before the state trial, that Bryan told investigators he heard Travis McMichael say “f-ing n-er” after shooting Arbery. It has come front and center and it needs to be discussed.” Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery’s mother, said it’s important for federal case to expose racist motives behind the killing because “there is an issue of race taking place in this country.
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