Mar. 10—The three men convicted more than a year ago of federal hate crimes for killing Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County's Satilla Shores neighborhood are appealing their convictions in federal court.

Filings in the U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit last week claim race did not motivate the White men's actions on Feb. 23, 2020, when they chased Arbery, a Black man, in pickup trucks while he was on foot and ultimately shot and killed him.

Attorneys for one of the men also argued in the filings that the federal government did not have jurisdiction for a federal hate crime case because the streets in the subdivision were not public.

Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, were sentenced in Glynn County Superior Court in January 2022 to life in state prison without the possibility of parole after a Glynn County jury found them guilty of murder and other associated charges. Their accomplice, William "Roddie" Bryan, was sentenced to life in state prison with the possibility of parole.

The trio was then convicted a month later in federal court in the Southern District of Georgia of hate crimes for attempting to kidnap Arbery and interfering with his right to use a public street because he was Black. The McMichaels were also both found guilty of brandishing a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. Travis McMichael was also found guilty federally of discharging a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.

Richmond Hill attorney A.J. Balbo argued in the appeal for Gregory McMichael, who is facing a life sentence for the federal conviction, that McMichael did not chase Arbery because he was Black, but rather because he fit the description of the person who had been seen on video trespassing at a nearby home construction site.

The appeal also argued that federal prosecutors failed to prove that Greg McMichael attempted to kidnap Arbery for a ransom or reward and that the streets in the Satilla Shores neighborhood are not public streets, as the charges for which he was convicted claim.

Those streets are the basis of the appeal filed by Savannah lawyer Amy Lee Copeland for his son, Travis McMichael, who is also facing a federal life sentence. Copeland argues that despite efforts by the developer of the Satilla Shores neighborhood, Glynn County rejected an offer to take over maintenance of its streets, making them private, not public streets. The appeal claims that evidence presented at trial of a Facebook thread among anonymous Satilla Shores residents about the streets was not sufficient to count as a legal opinion on which to consider the streets public.

Travis McMichael's appeal, like his father's, also claims prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the truck they drove to chase Arbery and that they used to barricade Arbery from leaving the neighborhood was an instrument of interstate commerce when committing the attempted kidnapping.

Bryan's appeal, filed by Augusta attorney J. Pete Theodocion, rehashed the evidence used by prosecutors during trial showing when Bryan used racial slurs multiple times while discussing in text messages his disdain for his daughter's Black boyfriend and when referring to Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations, among other instances. Those instances, the appeal claims, are not evidence that he acted during the murder out of a racial bias.

Bryan's appeal also sought to distance himself from the McMichaels.

"Unlike codefendants Gregory and Travis McMichael, Bryan never supported vigilantism," the appeal said. "Unlike Travis McMichael, defendant never called for violence against African Americans or any minority."