Three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery are set to appear in a Brunswick, Georgia, court on Wednesday to seek a retrial. Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan are all serving life sentences but claim issues such as a biased jury and inadequate legal defense warrant a new trial. Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley, who presided over their initial 2021 trial, has allocated up to two days to hear their arguments.
In February 2020, Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot after being chased by the defendants. The men claimed they thought Arbery was a thief, although authorities found no evidence supporting this. The fatal shooting was not promptly investigated until cellphone footage became public, sparking wider discourse on racial injustice in the US judicial system.
Travis McMichael's attorney, Pete Donaldson, argues the jury's decision was influenced by outside factors; he intends to present evidence to that end that he says emerged during a private investigator's recorded interviews with three jurors in 2022. Meanwhile, Bryan's lawyer, Rodney Zell, contends Bryan's previous legal counsel was inadequate as his client unintentionally incriminated himself. Additionally, Zell argues the judge improperly blocked the use of Arbery's past legal encounters as evidence. Alongside their state convictions, the three men were also found guilty of federal hate crimes, with a pending appeal challenging this verdict. (This story was generated by Newser's AI chatbot. Source: the AP)
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