Travis McMichael Was 'Allowed To Defend' Self When He Shot Ahmaud Arbery: Attorney

BRUNSWICK, GA — Defense attorneys completed their closing arguments late Monday in the trial of the three men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, and the prosecution stands poised to present its final word.

The trial will resume at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, which means the jury would start deliberating the case sometime late Tuesday morning.

William "Roddie" Bryan Jr., Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, are charged with murder and other charges in Arbery's death.

The attorney for the one unarmed man charged with murder —Bryan, who shot cell phone video of the fatal shooting — launched his closing arguments with three questions to the jury.

"When did Roddie Bryan know the McMichaels brought guns?" defense attorney Kevin Gough asked. "When did Roddie Bryan know Travis McMichael would shoot Mr. Arbery? And at that point, what could Roddie Bryan have done to stop it?"

Gough said there is no way his client was a party to any crime as the prosecution asserts.

"The inconvenient truth is that Roddie Bryan did not know and could not know that these men were armed until moments before Mr. Arbery's tragic death," Gough said. "He did not know and could not know that Arbery would be shot. And by that time, sadly, there was nothing Roddie Bryan could do to prevent this tragedy. Roddie Bryan didn't shoot anyone. At the time of the shooting, he was some distance back. He was armed only with his cell phone."

Gough suggested Bryan was meant to be there videoing the incident on his phone to document what happened.

"I don't know if it was divine province or serendipity," he said. "Somebody is guiding Mr. Bryan down that path."

Moments before Gough began his closing, he made another request for a mistrial late Monday amid claims that armed men were roaming outside the Glynn County Courthouse as the trial went on inside.

"There were protesters, and I don't know whether they were with the Black Panther group," Gough told the judge following closing statements for Gregory McMichael's attorney. "And there was a truck carrying a coffin with the name of the defendants on it. And people are carrying large weapons, apparently automatic weapons were seen outside."

Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski and Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley both corrected Gough's claim, saying that the coffin had the names of Arbery and George Floyd.

In previous demands for a mistrial, Gough cited the presence of "Black pastors" in the courtroom and the resulting rally of hundreds of black pastors outside the courthouse.

Monday he again made the request.

"This is no longer a figurative mob, this is a literal mob," he said. "We move for a mistrial."

Walmsley denied the motion.

Laura Hogue finished her closing arguments, noting that Gregory McMichael faces the same charges as his son, Travis McMichael, who shot and killed Arbery as a party to a crime.

Monday afternoon, in her defense of the older McMichael, Hogue reminded the jury that while her client is charged with murder, he did not fire a weapon.

"Greg McMichael pulled no trigger," Hogue said. "How could the state seek a conviction for malice murder when Greg stood in the bed of the pickup truck on the phone with 911 as the fatal shots were fired?"

Hogue painted Arbery as someone who could have been arrested and charged with burglary for entering a home that wasn't his own and from which items were stolen.

"There could be little doubt as well that Ahmaud Arbery knew why the McMichaels were trying to detain him on Feb. 23," she said. "His teenage years were full of promise, but his early 20s led him in the wrong direction."

She said Gregory McMichael was trying to protect the community he raised his children in.

"Police can’t be everywhere," Hogue said. "In a safe, secure neighborhood, police are helped by those neighbors. Like Gregory McMichael."

She said Arbery was in the wrong.

"Turning Ahmad Arbery into a victim after the choices that he made, does not reflect the reality of what brought him to Satilla Shores," she said. "Ahmaud Arbery wasn't an innocent victim plundering through Larry English's home."

Hogue said Arbery made a fatal choice on Feb. 23, 2020.

"No one is saying Ahmaud Arbery deserved to die for being in 220 Satilla Drive," she said. "For whatever inexplicable reason, he chose to fight ... to run at a man holding a shotgun."

The defense attorney for the man who shot and killed Arbery said his client felt like he had no choice but to shoot.

"Travis had no idea when he left his yard that day that he would be in this situation," Jason Sheffield said as he gave his final arguments on behalf of his client, Travis McMichael.

McMichael shot Arbery three times. On Monday, Sheffield showed frame-by-frame footage of video that showed the shooting and described a man frightened and using the only choice he had to protect himself.

He said Arbery had a chance to get away but, instead, at the final moment turned toward McMichael. Sheffield said the former enlisted man reacted with his training.

After listening to two weeks of evidence and more than 40 witnesses, the Glynn County jury assigned to the murder trial listened to the prosecution's closing arguments Monday morning and continued to hear more closing statements from the respective defense attorneys in the afternoon.

(Watch the video of the trial at the bottom of the story.)

"Is there any question that Mr. Arbery is assaulting Travis when that gun goes off?" Sheffield asked the jury. "You are allowed to defend yourself. You are allowed to use force that is deadly if you believe it is necessary. If this was a case about wanting to murder a Black jogger, Travis wouldn't have reacted the way he did."

Bryan, Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael face murder charges, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and other charges in connection with the shooting death of the 25-year-old Black man. They said they wanted to stop Arbery and talk to him about entering a home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood.

"'I know that I killed someone,' Travis McMichael said there on the stand," Sheffield said. "That will forever change his life."

Earlier on Monday, Cobb County prosecutors asked the jury if Arbery should be dead and if the white men on trial for his death had the right to chase him, trap him and kill him.

"Were they making a citizen's arrest?" prosecutor Dunikoski asked when she began her opening statement. "Were they justified? No. None of the defendants saw him commit a crime that day."

They suspected him when they chased him in their trucks.

"A citizen’s arrest requires you to have immediate knowledge of a crime in order to effectuate a citizen’s arrest," she said. “Mr. Bryan was on his porch. Travis McMichael was on the couch. Where was Gregory McMichael? They didn't see him. They just saw him running down the street."

"They didn't" have immediate knowledge of a crime, she said.

The three men didn't have the authority to investigate what he was doing, the state said.

"They are not law enforcement officers," Dunikoski said. "They are not in a marked patrol car. They are not showing badges on their arms. They're not in any uniform with legal authority."

The McMichaels and Bryan cornered Arbery, then Travis McMichael shot and killed him when Arbery turned to run in his direction.

"You can't be the aggressor then claim self-defense," Dunokoski said.

See Also: 'Public Lynching': Defense Slams Ahmaud Arbery Rally, No Mistrial

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Gough's earlier contention was that the Black pastors and the hundreds who joined them to rally outside the courthouse last week did so to “intimidate” and “influence” the jurors, witnesses and judge.

He had asked Walmsley for a mistrial because of it. Gough lost four motions for mistrials in the previous weeks.

Travis McMichael’s attorneys, Robert Rubin and Jason Sheffield, have argued their client shot Arbery with lethal force from up close but did so only to protect his own life.

Their case is that the former U.S. Coast Guardsman felt it was his duty to protect the neighborhood, and recount how when the younger McMichael encountered Arbery 12 days earlier at night, he was unarmed and Arbery appeared to reach into his waistband for a weapon.

The legal team asserts Travis McMichael presumed from Arbery’s action that night that he was armed and dangerous, so when he heard the same man was running down the street, he was not going to risk another unarmed confrontation.

McMichael testified he was confused as he saw Arbery appear to try and enter Bryan’s truck during the chase, then run toward him as he held his shotgun. The younger McMichael said he feared for his life when Arbery approached, even though McMichael held the weapon trained on the young man.

“It was this life-or-death situation,” Travis McMichael said from the witness stand last week, claiming self-defense. “So I shot.”

The defendants said Gregory McMichael, armed with a handgun, ordered Arbery to “stop, or I’ll blow your f---king head off,” and that although the three men sought to invoke Georgia’s citizen’s arrest laws, none of them called police before they gave chase.

Travis McMichael testified that Arbery didn’t threaten him in any way before he shot him.

Attorneys argued two trucks barreling down the road after a lone man on foot prompted the McMichaels to arm themselves against a man they weren’t sure was a threat.

Arbery had been running for five minutes from the armed men in trucks, and he accessed his “flight or fight” instinct and confronted Travis McMichael and struck him, as GBI medical examiner Dr. Edmund Donoghue said on the stand.

Prosecutors will likely suggest that but for the fact that a frightened Travis McMichael fired the Remington 12-gauge pump-action shotgun three times, Ahmaud Arbery would be alive.

The judge will give his final instructions and the jury will deliberate.