White man appeals conviction for Black student's killing

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A white man serving a life sentence for stabbing a Black college student to death at a bus stop at the University of Maryland has asked the state’s second highest court to throw out his murder conviction.

that Sean Urbanski's attorneys argue that the trial judge shouldn't have allowed jurors to see or hear about racist memes that investigators found on Urbanski’s phone after he killed Lt. Richard Collins III in May 2017. On Tuesday, they asked the Court of Special Appeals to order a new trial.

Prince George's County prosecutors claimed the killing was a racially motivated hate crime. Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Hill Jr. dismissed a hate crime charge against Urbanski before a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in December 2019.

But the judge said he believed both race and alcohol were factors in the killing. The judge allowed prosecutors to present evidence that Urbanski saved at least six photographs of racist memes on his cellphone and liked a Facebook group called “Alt-Reich: Nation.”

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