Congrats to the people involved in securing this easy win against these vile hate filled pieces of garbage.
When the evidence of the defendants’ racism was finally laid out in court, it proved to be both voluminous and harsh, including numerous uses of racist epithets and racial insults. Along with video of Mr. Arbery gasping for his final breaths on the pavement and testimony that the defendants did not render aid to him, the government’s case seemed to take an emotional toll on jurors, some of whom could be seen crying. Last week, one of the jurors asked court officials if counseling was available.
...
Text messages recovered from Mr. Bryan’s cellphone showed that he opposed his daughter’s relationship with a Black man, using a racist slur to describe the boyfriend in a text exchange four days before Mr. Arbery’s killing. A witness said Gregory McMichael made disparaging comments about a Black tenant who rented from him and about the civil rights leader Julian Bond.
Conviction news: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/22/us/ahmaud-arbery-verdict
Pretty crazy that the Judge rejected a plea deal in order to get this thing into trial.
In January, the McMichaels appeared to be heading off the possibility of going through a federal trial, having reached plea deals with the U.S. Department of Justice in which they would have been sentenced to 30-year sentences to run concurrent with their state sentences. However, Mr. Arbery’s parents came to court and pleaded for U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to reject the deals, in part because they would have allowed the men to spend the bulk of their sentences in the federal prison system, which is generally thought to be a less harsh environment than the Georgia state system. Judge Wood ended up rejecting the pleas.
The guys wanted a speedy way to get into a federal jail, but that chance was defeated by a Judge of all people.
Well then, this shouldn't distract from investigating and prosecuting all the disgusting crooked phukheads that covered up the case and delayed the prosecution of these murderers. Got lucky this was uncovered and pushed to the national spotlight.
Investigation of the cover up: https://www.wtoc.com/2022/01/24/investigation-into-prosecutorial-misconduct-ahmaud-arbery-murder-case