Justice Served for the Racist Murderers of Ahmaud Arbery
federal officials recently visited sites across the Mississippi Delta associated with Emmett Till’s life and death to gather local input on the creation of a national park dedicated to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
He should not be forgotten.The initial federal hate-crimes legislation was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson as far back as 1968; yet there was little execution of the law since it had many loopholes, and many states and municipalities were unwilling to bring hate-crimes charges, some because the charges can be difficult to prove, and for others a glaring lack of interest in pursuing them.In 2009, President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act that expanded the federal definition of hate crimes and among other things increased the ability of federal law enforcement to support state and local partners, particularly those states and municipalities that weren’t bringing cases of hate crimes forward.The violations of Ahmaud Arbery’s civil rights truly deserved a full trial, and you might even say that there was some justice for Emmett Till all these years later.
In what was arguably one of the first true media (social and traditional) hate-crimes trials of our time, three men who were already convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia were convicted this week of hate crimes related to his death.The men have already received life sentences for the murder convictions; they will be sentenced later on the hate-crimes convictions, which come with sentences up to life.
