Legal experts explain why prosecutors didn't reveal alleged racist texts from Ahmaud Arbery's killers at their murder trial

• Legal experts said it would have complicated the state case against Ahmaud Arbery's killers had the prosecution introduced aspects of racial bias.
• It also would not have been "legally relevant" in the state's murder case, an expert said.

This week, jurors in the federal hate crimes trial of Ahmaud Arbery's killers in Georgia heard testimony that detailed how two of the three white, convicted murderers had a history of using racial slurs in text messages and on social media.

Those messages were never shared as evidence during last year's state court murder trial of Travis McMichael, his dad, Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan.

But legal experts told Insider on Thursday that the decision was a strategic one.

Had the prosecution at the state trial of the three defendants introduced aspects of racial bias, it would have "complicated" the murder case and would not have even been "legally relevant," the legal experts told Insider.

"I think it was a litigation strategy," said Gloria Browne-Marshall, a constitutional law professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "They didn't want to have the racial aspect of it be on trial. They wanted the actions of those three individuals to be front and center before the jury."

Browne-Marshall explained, "It was a strategy because they knew how complicated cases become when you add the element of race."

"In a hate crimes case, you have to prove that race was the main motivator of the action," she said, adding that in the state murder trial "you just had to prove this was the action, and it led to death."

In November, both McMichaels and Bryan were convicted of murder in the February 23, 2020 shooting death of Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man.

All three men were sentenced to life in prison. Bryan was the only one given the possibility of parole.

Browne-Marshall said she believed it was "wise" for the prosecution to "look at the actions of the individuals and the actions of Ahmaud Arbery without bringing racial components into it."

"It muddies the water," she said. "And then each individual juror has their own particular experience and their own insight on what is racially motivated and what isn't."

Joe Margulies, a civil rights attorney and law and government professor at Cornell University told Insider: "Nothing in the state charges made the defendants' racism legally relevant."

"To admit the racist texts would therefore have been unduly prejudicial," he said.

Margulies also noted that some evidence "is much stronger when it's left unsaid."

"The state prosecutor knew full well this case was about race, as did the jury," said Margulies. "But if she raised that argument, she risked being attacked for playing a legally irrelevant 'race card.' "

"Far better, from her perspective, to just let it hang unspoken in the air," he said. "She knew exactly what she was doing."

Prosecutors are now trying to prove at the federal hate crimes trial, which began this week, that the three defendants were motivated by race in their murder of Arbery.