As the trial of the white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery reached closing arguments on Monday, prosecutors urged the jury to “use your common sense” and convict all three defendants. Defense attorneys then attempted to place the blame for the shooting on the unarmed 25 year-old himself.
Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan each face charges of felony murder, malice murder and other counts over the killing of Arbery, a Black man shot dead in south Georgia last year.
After 10 days of evidence, prosecutors asked the jury to consider whether the men’s claims of self-defense and attempted citizen’s arrest were “completely made up for trial”, pointing out that Travis McMichael, who shot Arbery three times, did not mention citizen’s arrest to police on the day of the killing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, use your common sense,” said Linda Dunikoski in a fervent closing argument. “Put your critical thinking caps on. It’s all the state can ask you to do.”
Dunikoski repeatedly told the jury the three men were the aggressors and made a series of assumptions and “driveway decisions” when they chased Arbery for five minutes after seeing him running through the neighborhood of Satilla Shores and linking him without evidence to a series of alleged burglaries.
“All three of these defendants made assumptions … about what was going on that day,” Dunikoski said. “And they made their decision to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their driveways, because he was a Black man running down the street.”
In an attempt to counter claims of self-defense, Dunikoski pointed to evidence in eyewitness video filmed by Bryan showing Travis McMichael left his truck after pursuing Arbery and pointed his shotgun as Arbery attempted to escape.
“Who brought the shotgun to the party? Who took the shotgun out of the car? Who pointed the shotgun?” Dunikoski said. “The guy [Arbery] is running – running away from them for five minutes.”
She continued: “But the bottom line is: but for their [the defendants’] actions, but for their decisions, but for their choices, Ahamud Arbery would be alive. And that’s why they’ve been indicted with murder, felony murder and the four felonies that led to the murder.”
She argued that a scuffle between Travis McMichael and Arbery, in which defense attorneys have claimed Arbery reached for McMichael’s shotgun, provided no legal justification for shooting.
“They [the defense] are going to try and convince you that Ahmaud Arbery was the attacker,” Dunikoski said. “That he was somehow threatening to them.”
The incident was “three on one”, she said. “Two pickup trucks. Two guns. Mr Arbery? Nothing in his pockets. Not a cellphone. Not a gun. Not even an ID. They want you to believe that he is a danger to them.”
The prosecutor argued that Georgia’s citizen’s arrest laws, repealed in the wake of the Arbery killing, did not apply to the case as the three men had no probable cause to detain Arbery and themselves committed a series of felonies during the pursuit.
The defense responded with a protracted attack on Arbery himself.
Laura Hogue, representing Greg McMichael, described Arbery as a “recurring night-time intruder” whose presence was “frightening and unsettling”. She suggested Arbery’s life had gone “astray” from that of “a beautiful teenager with a broad smile” to someone “acting erratically when approached and making terrible, unexpected illogical choices”.
Hogue argued it was Arbery’s decisions on 23 February last year and during previous trips to the neighborhood that led to his death.
“No one but Ahmaud Arbery made the decision not to stop when Travis’s truck rolled up beside him,” she said. “To wait, to tell the police what he was doing there.”
She added: “I realise, probably more than any of you, what an incredibly unpopular thing that is to say. But in a courtroom, with Greg McMichael facing the charge of murder, somebody’s got to say it. And believe me I’m proud to be the one to say it.”
Outside the courthouse in Brunswick, Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, shook his head as he told reporters the defense lawyers had “tried to mischaracterize his [Ahmaud’s] name”.
“It just really hurt,” Marcus Arbery said. “They’ve got no defense so she’s trying anything. They [the defence], they’re desperate. All we want is justice. Justice for Ahmaud.”
The shooting remained in relative obscurity until video filmed by Bryan was released. It sparked international outcry and led to state investigators taking over the case and recommending murder charges.
The initial investigation was handled by local law enforcement and prosecutors offices, prompting allegations of bias. Greg McMichael is a former Glynn county police officer and a retired investigator for the district attorney.
All three men pleaded not guilty and face life without parole. All have been charged under federal hate crime laws in a separate indictment brought by the US justice department and are due to go on trial next year.
Travis McMichael was the only defendant to take the stand, testifying that he fired his shotgun at close range in self-defense. He was pressed about discrepancies between statements to police and later testimony.
On Monday, Travis McMichael’s defense counsel, Jason Sheffield, was the first of the three defense lawyers to make closing arguments. Sheffield told the jury McMichael had not intended to kill Arbery until he was forced into a split-second decision.
Sheffield argued that his client had a “duty and responsibility” to his family and residents of Satilla Shores concerned about reports of alleged burglaries and suspicious people in the neighborhood. Sheffield also made frequent reference to McMichael’s training as a member of the US coast guard.
McMichael had told the jury his primary job was as a mechanic but he received law enforcement training. Sheffield rested on an extended metaphor tied to McMichael’s time at sea, claiming the defendant was on “a search for the truth, to pull it from the icy depths, and to raise it to the surface”.
He continued: “We have carried him [McMichael] to the surface, to you [the jury]. And now the choice is yours. Will you do as he has done in the past to others? Will you reach out your hand and extend it to Travis McMichael, and pull him out of those waters?”
On Monday afternoon Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough spent over 90 minutes delivering his closing arguments, arguing his client was “absolutely superfluous and irrelevant” to the shooting. Prosecutors have argued that Bryan was involved throughout the chase and had rammed Arbery with his vehicle five times during the pursuit.
Gough added he believed that “divine providence” had intervened on the day of the shooting to allow his client to film the incident on his cellphone.
“Somebody is guiding Mr Bryan, whether it’s a conscious thought process or not. Something is guiding Mr Bryan down this street to document what’s going on,” Gough said.
On Tuesday the prosecution will offer rebuttal arguments before the case is handed to the jury.