By Tyler Clifford

(Reuters] – Local prosecutors did not take any action when three men jumped out of their vehicles and chased Ahmaud Abery through their neighborhood, shooting him to his death.

Travis McMichael (36) and his father Gregory McMichael (66) were arrested after Arbery’s final moments in February 2020. A neighbor, William “Roddie”, Bryan (52), was also charged. The three men were found guilty of murder after a state court trial in November.

Federal hate crime proceedings opened in Brunswick, Georgia on February 14th. They were located near the Satilla Shores area where Arbery was killed.

After hearing the testimony of defendants about their long history of racism in social media postings and discourses, Tuesday’s predominantly white jury found Arbery’s murderers motivated by racial hatred. The justice system seized the opportunity to examine the details of the death, which the perpetrators had deliberately lied about in order for authorities not to hold them responsible.

“We got a victory today, but it’s so many families out there who don’t get victories because of people that we have fighting for us,” Arbery’s mother Wanda Cooper-Jones said after the verdict.

Cooper-Jones attacked the federal prosecution for not seeking a plea agreement earlier. That would have meant that graphic evidence of the defendant’s racist behavior would be kept out of public view. U.S. District Judge Lisa Wood made an unusual move by rejecting the plea deal, which allowed the trial to continue.

Cooper-Jones stated that Department of Justice prosecutors were “made to do their jobs today.”

According to Bureau of Justice Statistics statistics, the Department did not seek to bring charges against 82% of those it considered to have committed federal hate crimes between 2004 and 2019.

Fear that charges will prove difficult to prove may be the reason for Wood’s reluctance to file criminal charges. Wood explained to the Arbery Hate Crimes prosecutors after Tuesday’s verdict that “it could be difficult to demonstrate the racial motive part of hate crime.” You had all the evidence, and presented it professionally and skillfully.

Page Pate (a Brunswick federal criminal defense lawyer with 25-years experience) told Reuters that prosecutors faced a difficult task because the federal hate crime law is originally intended to be based on concrete evidence.

Pate stated in an interview that the law was meant for KKK (Ku Klux Klan), types of violence which were not mysterious – burning crosses and burning down churches, etc.”

After the conviction against Arbery’s killers, Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general, stated that each case was decided on its merits. In the past year, we’ve prosecuted a lot of hate crime cases and will continue to do so when we have all the facts and law in our favor.”

Garland didn’t answer directly a question regarding criticisms from Arbery’s mother about the original plea bargain attempt.

Garland, who was sounding choked up, said that she could not imagine how her mother must feel to see her son being run over and shot while running on a street.