Ahmaud Arbery death trial live updates: 3 found guilty of murder

Jason Sheffield, an attorney for Travis McMichael, began his closing argument with the statement, "Duty and responsibility and following law will always be intertwined with heartache and tragedy."

He added, "This case is about three things: it's about watching, it's about waiting, it's about believing."

Sheffield added that Travis McMichael spent nearly a decade in the U.S. Coast Guard "learning about duty and responsibility."

"He received extensive training on how to make decisions that would ultimately impact his beliefs as a petty officer in the Coast Guard, as a boarding officer in the Coast Guard," said Sheffield, adding that Travis McMichael trained on probable cause, use of force and using a gun to deter crime to the point it was part of his "muscle memory."

He said around the time Arbery was killed, the neighborhood of Satilla Shores was experiencing an increase in crime and suspicious people lurking in the neighborhood. He cited the testimony of several residents of the community who testified.

"They told you that this was happening in their neighborhood scared them," Sheffield said.

Sheffield directed the jury to an encounter Travis McMichael had with a man who was later identified as Arbery outside a home under construction in the neighborhood that Arbery was seen several times on security video entering.

Sheffield said the offense of burglary does not have to constitute a break-in, or a broken window or busted door.

"That's not what's required for the law. Those questions are meaningless and they are red herrings," Sheffield said. "You just have to break the plane of the structure to constitute a burglary."

The prosecutor told the panel that all three defendants are guilty of the crimes they are charged.

She said the evidence shows the McMichaels and Bryan used their pickup trucks to falsely imprison Arbery, that Bryan admitted to police that he tried to block Arbery several times and once ran him into a ditch during the five-minute chase.

She cautioned the jury that the defense attorneys will make it seem logical that it was reasonable for the three men on trial to be scared of Arbery and that he was attacking them, and that Travis McMichael "had to pull a shotgun out on him."

"They're going to make it seem so reasonable," Dunikoski said. "Put on your critical thinking caps. Use your common sense when they're up here giving their closing arguments."

Dunikoski methodically went through the evidence piece by piece Monday, telling the jury that at no time did the McMichaels and Bryan ever mentioned to police on the day of the killing that they were attempting to make a citizen's arrest or that any of them saw Arbery leaving a house under construction in their neighborhood. She noted that a requirement for making a citizen's arrest is to witness a felony take place or at least have direct knowledge of one having occurred.

"But for their actions, but for their decisions, but for their assumptions, Ahmaud Arbery would be alive," Dunikoski said.

She asked the jury to reject Travis McMichael's testimony that he, his father and Bryan chased down Arbery and shot him in self-defense, saying
you can't be the initial aggressors and then claim self-defense.

"Here's the problem, this is completely made up for trial," Dunikoski said, pointing out the differences between what Travis McMichael told police on the day of the shooting and what he said during his testimony.

"Simply put ladies and gentlemen, if you determine that this was not a citizen's arrest, this was not legitimate, he had no probable cause, you can't do this based on the law, then guess what? They're not justified in killing him, they're not justified of any of the felonies they committed against him," Dunikoski said.

Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski began her closing argument by telling the jury that the three defendants chased and killed Arbery based on "assumptions and decisions" made in their driveways based on rumor and neighborhood gossip.

"The state's position is all three of these defendants made assumptions, made assumptions about what was going on that day and they made their decision to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their driveways because he was a Black man running down the street," Dunikoski said.

She stressed that the "bottom line" is that the defendants assumed Arbery had committed a crime "because he was running real fast down the street."

"They did not call 911. They wanted to stop him and 'question' him before they called 911," she said. "How do we know that? Because that is what they told the police that night."

She asked the jury to closely consider the evidence she said shows beyond reasonable doubt that the men committed murder.

"This is your search for the truth," Dunikoski told the jury. "You are Glynn County."