Ahmaud Arbery's aunt: 'This is destroying my family'

But we begin with what was a particularly heinous crime that caused a national outcry. Today, 3 white men who chased Ahmaud Arbery before he was shot and killed were back in court trying to get their hate crime convictions thrown out. The video of the attack that we are about to show you is hard to watch, but it is an important reminder. Arbery was just running through their neighborhood when father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves, got into a pickup truck and gave chase. Their neighbor, William Roddy Bryan, soon joined them in his own truck and recorded Travis shooting Arbery dead on the street. For Ahmed Arbery’s family, this moment is opening up blistering and painful wounds. I am so hurt still because when we saw what happened at first, we thought this would be over with now and for people to keep giving money for these people to appeal and the way they took my nephew life. This is destroying my family. This is sickening. To see somebody gunned down a baby that was out for a jog. No other family deserve to go through what we’re going through right now. It’s sickening. If you’re not sick when you see this, it will make you sick. I’ve been sick ever since 2020. NBC’s Blaine Alexander is outside the courthouse in Atlanta. Also with us, Axios senior politics reporter Eugene Scott and former prosecutor and civil rights attorney Kristen Gibbons. Fatten. Good to have both of you here. So, Blaine, after that conviction in Georgia State court, it happened back in 2021, Ahmaud, Arbery’s mother, said her son could finally rest in peace. Then today, I mean, you heard the visceral hurt, the anger in his aunt’s voice, having to deal with this, to relive this over again. How did legal arguments land today? Well, I think you said it, Chris. I think the fact that the Arberry family is back here now more than four years after Ahmad Arberry was killed, really fighting to make sure that this conviction is upheld is something that is a strong pain point for them. You heard it from his aunt. We’ll hear it from his father in just a second. I think that’s certainly painful for the Arberry family. But then we do kind of widen this out and look at what exactly this conviction was. Remember, this is a federal hate crimes conviction. They said they’ve already been convicted of murder in a state court. That sentence is separate from this one. But when you look at this, this was really of symbolic significance because of the three deaths that we saw back in 2020, of course, Ahmad Arberry, Brianna Taylor and George Floyd, it was Ahmad Arberry’s That was the only one that brought any sort of conviction based on race. And so that’s why we saw organizations like the N Double ACP, like Black Voters Matter, like other community activists who were also coming out here to express their concern that this could possibly possibly be appealed and overturned. Here’s a little bit of what we heard from Marcus Arberry, though of course he’s Ahmad Arberry’s father, and he spoke very passionately about what today represented to them. Take a look. What happened to Maud is everybody’s problem. Because if we don’t stop this now, this country going to go backwards, We got to bring changes. We got to make our young people feel free to run and have fun and not chase down like animals, because all black people are human beings, all young people. And I don’t want no one to walk the school to fear their life. So I tell you one thing, it’s all our problem. That’s why we got to make these people account for what they’ve done to my baby. And so you heard those passionate words there from Marcus Arberry, the father of Ahmad Arberry. Now, of course, Chris, the question is how will what will the decision be in all of this? We still are going to wait likely a few weeks before we hear how the judges decide on this, Chris. All right. Thank you so much for that, Blaine Alexander. So, Kristen, let’s talk about the arguments that came up. One of them in the legal briefs. Was that the past racist comments by these guys who’ve been convicted on social media inflamed the jury while failing to prove that they did this because of Arbory’s race. Here’s what the AP notes quote The social media evidence included a 2018 Facebook comment that Travis McMichael made on a video of a black man playing a prank on a white person. He used an expletive and a racial slur writing I’d kill that blank. What do you make of the argument that was in court? I suspect that the prosecution is actually going to be successful in their argument. Really, whenever you have an hate crime, the prosecution must prove at the trial level that the defendants intentionally targeted the victim because of race. So when we look at the evidence that was presented right, those dozen racist text messages and the social media posts, yes, evidence unfortunately can have a damaging. It could be very prejudicial to the jury when it comes in. But if the probative nature of that evidence outweighs the prejudicial value, then it’s fair game. And that is what the prosecution is arguing. That was a key evidence that they needed in order to counter the defendants argument that it was about him being a criminal and not about him being black. But they were able to show, you know, those nasty text messages, some of which included the N word, others derogatory language directed at black people to show that their actions were actually motive motivated by race and that’s why it constituted a hate crime. The other thing, Kristen, that’s worth noting is that the defendants lawyers relied on a lot of legal technicalities in making their arguments. Amy Lee Copeland for example, who’s the lawyer for Travis McMichael focused today on prosecutors they say failing to prove that Arbery was killed on public roads. Take a listen. The legal effect of the refused offer dedication, coupled with what the county actually did in the intervening years, shows that the county simply did not administer the streets. The District Court found that it was enough that the streets were simply usable. Do you have any case law that says we need to draw the strength distinction between streets and right away? Your Honor, I don’t, except that they’re simply different. Is that grounds for an appeal? It is grounds for an appeal because it could challenge whether or not it was rightfully brought in federal court. But again, you know, going back told the evidence that was actually presented at the trial level, where the prosecution presented evidence of service request records and testimony from county officials which were intended to show that those streets were treated as public. They were public streets and therefore it constituted a public place. In other words, what the prosecution had to prove as part of it was that Mister Arbory was murdered in the public streets and I think that that would be sufficient to show it. So while it is grounds for an appeal, again, I suspect it’s not going to be successful. The subtext of this, of course, Eugene, is that the criminal justice system, in a way that’s kind of flipped from what we’ve seen in the past, is on trial today. Because when the state verdict first came down, activists felt a kind of sense of hope that a broken system was maybe showing some signs of changing. Today also brings back a lot of those feelings for people who have fought for racial justice. Does this system today feel any less broken? I’m not quite sure that it does. And I think that’s what we saw a mods articulate. They had a sense, they being the family, a sense of peace and comfort when this federal conviction went forward because with this, in the event that the state conviction would have been overturned, this still meant that these individuals were going to serve significant prison time. But if this does get overturned, there is a chance, they fear that perhaps these individuals will not have to serve out their four life sentences in the event that those cases are appealed as well. And so that’s why you see civil rights organizations say that it’s really important that federal hate crime convictions stand in situations like this. And I wanted to know one of the things that’s very important to realize about this case that distinguishes it from the ones involving Brianna Taylor and George. The story is that these individuals were not law enforcement. And the fear that many black Americans felt was that, quite frankly, random individuals could just run out in the street and kill people because they felt unsafe and get off with it. And what you see the families begging for and fighting for with this situation right now is for that not to be the case and that for justice to be served not in just this incident, but in all similar cases we have seen in the past. With so many of these and far too many of these high profile cases, the political ramifications of this right Eugene, the the president of The Collective PAC, which is the largest political action committee that supports black candidates, specifically pointed to the prosecution of Ahmaud Arbery in their endorsement of Joe Biden in 2024. Here’s what they said. Quote. We’ve got the receipts Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have delivered for the black community, appointing more black judges than every other president combined and prosecuting the killers of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. This administration made promises and kept them. So now this is back in the news at a time when we know that black voters have moved away, including young male black voters away from Joe Biden. Is the president talking about this enough? Enough, Perhaps not to the demographics that want to hear more about this. As you all both know, these cases are not in the news like they were in 2020. I mean, this was such a big case that not only was fighting and Harris speaking about it, Trump was speaking about it. Republicans hoping to win the Senate seat in Georgia and state office were speaking about it. But we haven’t seen that. And whether we see that moving forward and before Election Day could determine who is successful in November. And we expect, based off what we have seen Biden and Harris to lean into this. Whether Trump brings it up again, I’m not quite sure because quite frankly, this is not an issue that is of significant concern to many of the demographic groups that the former president is hoping to win. Eugene Scott, Kristen Gibbons Fedden, thank you so much. We appreciate you.