The three white men who took part in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery are appealing their federal hate crime convictions, and for two of the convicts, attorneys appear to be arguing that just because they’re racist doesn’t mean the racism made them do it.
According to CNN, the defense lawyers for Travis and Greg McMichaels and William “Roddie” Bryan filed their appeals earlier this month. Bryan’s attorney appeared to be arguing that his client isn’t all that racist while simultaneously arguing that his racism doesn’t automatically make him guilty of a hate crime. And he had no issue with throwing Travis all the way under the white supremacist bus in making his contradictory arguments.
“The evidence against Bryan did not present a man who saw the world through a prism of racism. He was not obsessed with African Americans such as his codefendant Travis McMichael,” attorney J. Pete Theodocion wrote in his filing. “There is simply not sufficient evidence in the record to suggest Bryan would have acted any differently on the day in question had Arbery been white, Hispanic, Asian or other. Every crime committed against an African American is not a hate crime. Every crime committed against an African American by a man who has used racist language in the past is not a hate crime.”
Yeah, Theodocion definitely needed to add that last bit about “racist language” because otherwise, he would have a lot of explaining to do regarding his non-obsessed-with-Black people client and his Klan-destine text conversations.
From CNN:
In a message to a friend on MLK Day in 2020, Bryan wrote to a friend, “Happy Bootlip Day.” The message was read aloud in court.
“I worked like a n***er today,” Bryan added in the message.
Another set of messages between Bryan and a friend on February 19, 2020 – four days before Arbery’s killing – discussed Bryan discovering his daughter was dating a Black man.
‘She has her n***er now,” he wrote,…
Read the full article here
