Delivering guilty pleas on all counts for the 34-year-old shooter Travis McMichael, his 65-year-old father Gregory McMichael and their 50-year-old neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, a jury of 11 white, one black jurors in Glynn County Georgia delivered their verdict in the Feb. 23, 2020 shooting death of 25-year-old Amaud Arbery. Arbery had the misfortune of jogging, as a young black man, through Michaels’ neighborhood, hunted down like an animal and shot with shotgun by Travis McMichael. Today’s verdict potentially sends all three to prison-for-life runs counter the Black Lives Matter narrative that there are two justice systems in the United States, one for whites and one for blacks. Convicting all three of felony homicide, there was nothing racial about the jury’s conclusions, following the obvious facts to conclude that all three men were guilty of murder and a racially driven hate crime.
Travis and Gregory McMichael and Roddie Bryan will also face federal hate crimes prosecution of the special circumstance of a racially motivated crime. Whatever the final convictions, the three will likely spend their lives behind bars for life without the possibility of parole. Whether Glynn County prosecutors will ask for the death penalty under Georgia law is anyone’s guess. Most likely the three will receive life sentences for the egregious hate crime, motivated primarily by race, with the three white men conspiring together like a fox hunt to trap Arbery and shoot him dead. Judge Timothy Walmsley will set a sentencing hearing sometime in the near future. Media pundits watching the 13-day trial complained about the jury composition, stating that a black citizen could not receive a fair trial. When jurors returned the guilty verdicts it upended Democrats, media and BLM’s narrative about two justice systems.
Since the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, Democrats and the media charge that the U.S. suffers from “systemic racism,” building two systems of justice, one for whites and one for blacks. Only last week, the same voices in the Democrat Party and press complained that 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges, including two murder counts, claiming he shot in self-defense. So when another predominantly white jury in Kenoosha, Wisconsin, with only one person of color, acquitted Rittenhouse Nov. 19, Democrats, the press and BLM said “we told you so,” namely, the U.S. criminal justice systems suffers from “systemic racism.” So when the verdict goes the wrong way today, Democrats, the press and BLM say nothing, other than all suspects convicted were “good old Southern boys.” Yet Democrats, the press and BLM are silent about black looting going around the country.
Anyone that knows anything about the criminal justice system knows that there’s well-established civil rights legislation guaranteeing every defendant, no matter what their color, due process. Yet today’s verdict throws Democrats, the press and BLM for a loop because a primarily white jury in the Deep South convicted three white men of first- degree murder, now special circumstances of a hate crime. Univ. of Georgia law Prof. Ron Carson expects the McMichaels to appeal because Judge Walmsley refused to admit Arbery’s criminal record into evidence. Attorneys Robert Rubin and Jason Sheffield said they’d likely appeal on behalf of the McMichaels citing the judge refused to admit Arbery’s criminal record, mental health history and his probation record. Rubin and Sheffield believe the judge’s ruling prejudiced their clients in the eyes of the jury. Walmsley thought that Arbery’s past history was irrelevant.
When it comes to the real consequences of the Arbery trial, it’s going to shatter the narrative that a black defendant can’t get a fair trial with a white jury. While Arbery’s jury had every chance to follow the defense’s self-defense arguments, it didn’t change the basic facts of the case recorded on video: That all three defendants trapped Arbery and shot him with vigilante justice. When it came to Rittenhouse’s trial, jurors watched several defendants, including two killed by Rittenhouses AR-15-type assault rifle, attack Rittenhouse on video, lending credibility to his self-defense case. When it came to McMichaels and Bryan, there was no video evidence of self-defense, giving jurors no way out for the defendants. So when it came to due process, jurors had to follow the law when weighing each count against the evidence presented. Both trials showed no “systemic racism.”
When the Michaels and Bryan stand trial Feb. 7 in Federal Court on hate crimes, their defense attorneys will be hard-pressed to argue the same failed self-defense strategy. There only way out will be testifying in open court about their motives to see if the federal jury buys their arguments. Getting the double-whammy of a federal hate crimes trial will likely add more time to already life sentences. No Democrat, member of the press or activist group like BLM can say now that there’s two criminal justice systems, one for whites, one for blacks. If they want to argue that poor defendants have a tougher time in the U.S. criminal justice system, that’s a fair argument. But when it comes to jury composition, a good jury is color blind when applying relevant criminal laws. When a predominantly white jury delivered justice today in Georgia, only one criminal justice system existed, the color blind one.
