The three men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery are facing what his attorney has described as public lynching in the 21st century.
Gregory McMichael, his son Travis, and William Bryan have been charged in connection to the killing of the African American.
Defense attorney Kevin Gough, who represents the three men, suggested that there was a bias in the way outside activists and media treated the case.
"Third parties are influencing this case," Gough said, adding that the trial has been "infected by mob violence by the left woke mob."
The attorney also requested a mistrial that was denied by Judge Timothy Walmsley.
"This is what a public lynching looks like in the 21st century," Gough said.
Arbery, 25, was out for a jog in the US state of Georgia in February last year, when he was chased down by a truck and fatally shot.
In response to the attorney’s earlier comments, hundreds of Black pastors gathered at the Arbery trial on Thursday.
“What we have now with individuals coming into the courtroom, I will say that is directly in response, Mr. Gough, to statements you made which I find reprehensible,” the judge said.
The Arbery case has been one of the many, fueling mass protests across the United States against police abuse of the Black community.
Civil rights advocates have denounced Arbery’s tragic death as another instance of white perpetrators killing a Black man and trying to go unpunished.