BRUNSWICK, Ga. – Three white men serving life in prison for murder after chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 returned to court Thursday to ask a judge for a new trial.
Attorneys for Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and their former neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan began making a range of arguments for a new trial, from a tainted jury to ineffective counsel for one of the men. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley, who was the judge in their 2021 murder trial and handed down their sentences, set aside up to two days to hear their legal motions.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and jumped in a pickup truck to chase Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, after they saw him run past their house on Feb. 23, 2020, in a subdivision outside the port city of Brunswick. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael firing shotgun blasts at close range into Arbery, who fell fatally wounded in the street.
Travis McMichael's attorney, Pete Donaldson, told the judge Thursday he plans to present testimony showing one of the trial jurors “concealed his bias in favor of the Arbery family" when he was questioned by the judge and attorneys during jury selection.
Donaldson said the man, identified in court only as juror No. 30, was interviewed by a private investigator working for the defense team in 2022. He said the juror said he prayed after the final jury was selected and he was the only Black member of the panel.
“I felt like the weight of the whole Black race was on my shoulders,” Donaldson quoted the juror as saying.
Walmsley said he would allow the juror to testify, with limitations. The judge said the man would be prohibited from discussing any jury deliberations, which are shielded as private by law.
No arrests were made in Arbery's killing for more than two months, until Bryan's cellphone video leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from police. Arbery's death became part of a broader reckoning on racial injustice in the criminal legal system along with the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.
Defense attorneys argued during the Georgia trial that the armed pursuit was justified because the McMichaels and Bryan suspected Arbery was a thief and sought to detain him for police. Travis McMichael testified that he opened fire in self-defense when Arbery attacked with his fists. Police found no evidence Arbery had stolen anything or committed other crimes in the neighborhood.
Greg McMichael's lawyer, Jerry Chappell, said he was supporting Donaldson's effort to question the verdict's fairness.
Bryan’s lawyer, Rodney Zell, argued in a written motion that Bryan's trial attorney was ineffective. He noted that Bryan, on his previous lawyer's advice, had agreed to be interviewed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Zell said Bryan was ill-prepared to speak with investigators and managed to “incriminate himself.”
On Thursday, Zell called to the witness stand Bryan's trial attorney, Kevin Gough. He testified that Bryan had not yet been charged with any crimes when he spoke to a GBI agent in two interviews, and said his goal was to get authorities to declare Bryan a witness and not a suspect.
“There was never a legally binding agreement for Mr. Bryan’s cooperation,” Gough said. “And Mr. Bryan was very aware of that.”
Asked about Bryan's comments to investigators that he had used his pickup truck to help the McMichaels box in Arbery and force the running man off the road, Gough said: “I think Mr. Bryan was concerned that some of the statements that he gave to the GBI might in retrospect have not have looked so good.”
Zell also wrote in his legal motion that the judge had wrongly prohibited defense attorneys from presenting trial evidence of “prior bad acts” by Arbery. Defense attorneys had sought to use evidence of Arbery’s past run-ins with law enforcement, including two arrests, as well as mental health records to argue that the McMichaels rightly feared that he might be dangerous.
Walmsley ruled before the trial that such evidence related to Arbery's character was irrelevant to the murder case, because none of the defendants knew him prior to the deadly chase.
Seeking a new trial marks a first step by the three defendants in challenging their murder convictions. Walmsley sentenced both McMichaels to life in prison without parole, while giving Bryan a chance of parole.
The men were also convicted of federal hate crimes in U.S. District Court after a separate trial in February 2022. The jury concluded the trio targeted Arbery because he was Black. Prosecutors presented two dozen social media posts and text messages, as well as witness testimony, that showed all three men used racist slurs or otherwise disparaged Black people.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in March from attorneys asking the court to overturn the hate crimes verdict. A decision on the federal appeals is still pending.