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Arbery’s killers ask court to overturn hate crime verdicts

ATLANTA — Attorneys for three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia subdivision asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to throw out their hate crime convictions, arguing that prosecutors relied on their history of racist comments without proving they targeted Arbery because he was Black. "At the end of the day, this issue isn't about the racism of these defendants," A.J. Balbo, representing Greg McMichael, told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. "It's about whether or not the government met its burden." Their arguments also strayed beyond the core issue of whether a racist intent to harm motivated the Feb. 23, 2020, pursuit that ended with Arbery shot dead in the street. Defense attorneys raised legal technicalities, including their contention that prosecutors failed to prove Arbery was killed on a public road. Federal prosecutors countered that the trial jury in 2022 heard sufficient evidence to find the trio guilty of hate crimes as well as attempted kidnapping. Racist views evidenced by the men's prior text messages and social media posts, they said, informed their mistaken assumption that Arbery was a fleeing criminal. "The hate-fueled violence the defendants inflicted on Ahmaud is precisely the type of conduct that Congress targeted when it passed the Civil Rights Act," said Brant Levine, an attorney for the Justice Department's civil rights division. Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after spotting the 25-year-old man running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun. More than two months passed without arrests, until Bryan's graphic video of the killing leaked online and a national outcry erupted over Arbery's death. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police and charges soon followed. All three men were convicted of murder in a Georgia state court in late 2021, followed months later by the federal hate crimes trial. In their oral arguments and legal briefs, lawyers for Greg McMichael and Bryan cited the prosecutors' use of more than two dozen social media posts and text messages, as well as witness testimony, that showed all three men using racist slurs or otherwise disparaging Black people. Bryan's attorney, Pete Theodocion, called it "some of the ugliest, most repulsive evidence any of us have ever heard in a trial," and explosive enough that prosecutors could sway a jury without proving a racist intent to harm Arbery himself. "When the jury hears that evidence, we have to make sure that the government is actually presenting some evidence as to all the essential elements of crimes because it is such an uphill battle," Theodocion told the judges. Balbo said Greg McMichael initiated the pursuit of Arbery because he mistakenly suspected him of being a fleeing criminal. He had seen security camera videos in prior months that showed Arbery entering a neighboring home under construction. When Arbery ran past the McMichaels' home in February 2020, Balbo argued, Greg McMichael recognized him from those videos "by his height, his weight, his tattoos, his manner of dress." "If this person had been a 60-year-old Black man, Greg McMichael would not have engaged him," Balbo said. "The race was a non-contributing role in this matter." One of the judges sounded skeptical. Judge Britt Grant, nominated to the appeals court by former President Donald Trump, said the trial evidence of racist intent behind Arbery's killing "seems pretty overwhelming to me." None of the videos showed Arbery stealing, and police found no stolen property or weapons on his body. Judge Elizabeth "Lisa" Branch, another Trump appellate court nominee; and District Court Judge Victoria Calvert, who was nominated by President Joe Biden to the federal bench and is serving temporarily on the 11th Circuit, also heard the arguments. The judges did not indicate how long they might take to rule. The legal technicalities raised by the defense included Travis McMichael's attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove the streets of the Satilla Shores subdivision where Arbery was killed were public roads, as stated in the indictment used to charge the men. Copeland cited records of a 1958 meeting of Glynn County commissioners in which they rejected taking ownership of the streets from the subdivision's developer. Prosecutors countered that service request records and trial testimony from a county official showed the streets had been maintained by the county government for decades. Theodocion also argued that using their pickup trucks to cut off Arbery's escape from the neighborhood didn't amount to attempted kidnapping. He said the charge was improper because the men weren't seeking ransom or some other benefit, an element required to prove the charge as a federal crime. Levine countered that the McMichaels and Bryan sought the "satisfaction of catching a Black man that they assumed to be a criminal on the streets of their neighborhood." The trial judge sentenced both McMichaels to life in prison for their hate crime convictions, plus additional time — 10 years for Travis McMichael and seven years for his father — for openly carrying guns while committing violent crimes. Bryan received a lighter hate crime sentence of 35 years in prison, in part because he wasn't armed and preserved the cellphone video that became crucial evidence. All three also got 20 years for attempted kidnapping, to overlap with their hate crime sentences. If the U.S. appeals court overturns any of their federal convictions, both McMichaels and Bryan would remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in Georgia state prisons for murder and have motions for new state trials pending before a judge.

Court evicts Lindell’s MyPillow from Minn. warehouse

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used, but company founder and prominent election denier Mike Lindell said that it's just a formality because the landlord wants to take the property back. Lindell denied in an interview with The Associated Press that the eviction was another sign of his money woes. He said his financial picture is actually improving after a credit crunch last year disrupted cash flow at MyPillow after the company lost one of its major advertising platforms and was dropped by several national retailers. "We're fine," he said. Lindell faced a setback last month when a federal judge affirmed a $5 million arbitration award in favor of a software engineer who challenged data that Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and tipped the outcome to Joe Biden. Lindell acknowledged in January that Fox News stopped running MyPillow commercials amid a billing dispute. Lindell confirmed Wednesday that MyPillow owes around $217,000 to Delaware-based First Industrial LP for rent for the facility in Shakopee. He said MyPillow no longer needed the space and removed its remaining property from the warehouse last June before subleasing the space to another company through December. Another company was going to start subleasing the space in January but backed out and "left us all stranded," he said. MyPillow offered to find another tenant, he said, but the landlord just wanted to take back control of the warehouse instead. The $217,000 is for unpaid rent for January and February, he said. He also said MyPillow continues to lease space elsewhere. The Star Tribune reported that a Scott County judge held a hearing Tuesday on the warehouse owner's request to formally evict MyPillow, which did not contest the landlord's request. "MyPillow has more or less vacated but we'd like to do this by the book," attorney Sara Filo, representing First Industrial, said during the hearing, the newspaper reported. "At this point there's a representation that no further payment is going to be made under this lease, so we'd like to go ahead with finding a new tenant." Judge Caroline Lennon filed the eviction order Wednesday. Lindell, who continues to propagate former President Donald Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, in part by rigged voting machine systems, still faces defamation lawsuits by two voting machine companies. Lawyers who were originally defending him in those cases quit over unpaid bills.

City pays wrongfully imprisoned man 8-figure settlement; $25 million settlement

Action: Civil rights violation Injuries alleged: Wrongful conviction and resulting imprisonment for more than 44 years and infliction of emotional harm on plaintiff Case name: Long v. City of Concord, et al Court/case no.: Eastern District of North Carolina / 5:21-CV-201-D Judge: James C. Dever III Mediator: Bill Brazile Amount: $25 million Date: Jan. 9, 2024 Attorneys: Chris Olson of Olson Law, Raleigh, and David Rudolf and Sonya Pfeiffer of Pfeiffer Rudolf, Charlotte (for the plaintiff) Plaintiff, a Black man then 20 years old, was wrongfully convicted in 1976 for the rape of a white widow at her home in Concord. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. The case was built upon the purported identification of plaintiff after a contrived and highly suggestive courtroom ID procedure. Substantial exculpatory evidence was collected but unlawfully concealed by investigators. Evidence of that misconduct by law enforcement would trickle out over the next 40 years, leading to plaintiff's exoneration in August 2020 and him being granted a pardon of innocence in December 2020. A lawsuit was filed in May 2021 against the city of Concord and several of its police officers. After the lawsuit was filed, plaintiff’s counsel received documents for the first time indicating that State Bureau of Investigation personnel also were involved in the investigation.  An amended complaint naming SBI personnel as defendants was filed in June 2021. Claims against the SBI defendants were resolved for $3 million in March 2023. The remaining claims against Concord and its police defendants were settled for $22 million in January 2024. In addition to the monetary damage, the city agreed to issue a formal apology to plaintiff and his family for the wrongs done to them.