A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday upheld the hate crime convictions of three white men who chased Ahmaud Arbery through their Georgia subdivision with pickup trucks before one of them killed the Black man with a shotgun.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took well over a year to rule after attorneys for the defendants urged the judges in March 2024 to overturn the case, arguing the men’s history of racist text messages and social media posts failed to prove they targeted Arbery because of his race.

Even if the appeals judges had thrown out their hate-crime convictions, the trio faced no immediate reprieve from prison. That’s because they’re also serving life sentences for murder after being convicted in a Georgia state court.