‘a lot to take in’

Black Juror Explains How Jury Convicted Arbery Killers of Hate Crimes in Just 4 Hours

Marcus Ransom, the only Black male on the jury, also explained why he broke down in tears when the verdict was read out.

In an interview with The New York Times, a Black juror in the federal hate crimes trial against Ahmaud Arbery’s killers explained how the jury reached a verdict in just four hours, and why he burst into tears when it was read out. “Just seeing that it was so much hatred that they had, not only for Ahmaud, but to other people of the Black race,” Marcus Ransom said when explaining why he cried at the verdict. “It was a lot to take in.” Ransom, the jury foreman, said he also cried when prosecutors played a video share by one of the defendants with a friend that mocked a Black child as he danced. He described the jury’s deliberations as cordial, businesslike and undramatic. No one presented any passionate arguments for acquittal, and they simply went through the evidence to support each charge methodically and promptly, he said. Gregory and Travis McMichael and William Bryant were separately convicted of murder in a state trial.