The lawyers that defended the three racist vigilantes in the Ahmaud Arbery case used racism in the courtroom to try and evoke latent white supremacist thinking of many in this country. However, it backfired on them as a jury of 11 whites and one Black person found Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William Bryan were found guilty on multiple accounts According to NBC News, “Lee Merritt, who is representing Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said Gough’s statements, outside the ears of the jury, have become ‘more targeted, more persistent and more racist.’” We know that the lawyers for the murderers used all kinds of tricks to exclude Blacks from the jury including asking them if they were supporters of the Black Lives Matter Movement and their thoughts on that racist and traitor Confederate flag. None of it worked! People should file complaints against these lawyers for using racist tactics in a court of law.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney in the Ahmaud Arbery case is running for Texas Attorney General against Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton has been described as a tyrant, a Trump brown noser, a racist, and the worst violator of civil and human rights legal opinions since the traitorous Confederate authorities were in power in Texas. According to Lee Merritt, “I’m a civil rights attorney and community organizer, and have dedicated my life to tackling the issues of police brutality, hate crimes, and corporate discrimination. Now, I’m running to be the People’s Attorney General. Together, we will fight for all Texans, no matter their background, race, religion, party or class.”
One of the lawyers for the killers, Kevin Gough, and the lawyer for William Bryan even went so far as to try and make it seem that Black ministers were there trying to influence the jury. According to NBC News, Gough said, “We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here,” This was after Gough he noticed Al Sharpton sat in the courtroom comforting the grieving mother of Mr. Arbery. The lawyers for Gregory and Travis McMichael, repeatedly used the racist ploy of trying to present a Black man as a criminal and the white killers as victims. These tactics have worked for centuries, as thousands were hanged, tortured, or imprisoned during the days of slavery and Jim Crow. Laura Hogue, one of Gregory McMichael’s lawyers, went so far as to use an autopsy report of the body of Arbery as a man “in . . . khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails,” These lawyers, Kevin Gough and Laura Hogue, should have their law licenses taken away. These lawyers used powerful racist images in an attempt to get a not guilty verdict.
Attorneys Laura Hogue and Kevin Gough were schooled in the classrooms of white supremacy and thought their racist tropes would resonate with white jury members. This was done in San Antonio in the 1980s when attorney Fred Semaan attempted the same racist tactic for two law enforcement officers accused of killing Webb Boyd, a Black Man. Fred Semaan, now deceased, kept calling the victim a “Black Man” in an attempt to play on any racist sympathies that might exist in the minds of the jury. He even went so far as to claim that a multi-ethnic press conference calling for justice was a “Black Rally.” He bit off more than he could chew as civil rights activists, John Sanders, T.C. Calvert, and myself blasted his tactics when we were called to testify. The officers were found guilty.
