Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers sentenced to life in prison for federal hate crime
The white father and son convicted of murder in Ahmaud Arbery’s fatal shooting after they chased him through a Georgia neighborhood were sentenced on Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.
Travis McMichael, 36, and Greg McMichael, 66, received their sentences from US district court judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. The punishment is largely symbolic – the McMichaels were sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for 25-year-old Arbery’s murder.
Wood said the pair had received a “fair trial”.
“And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
The McMichaels were among three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. Their neighbor, 52-year-old William “Roddie” Bryan, was sentenced later on Monday to 35 years in prison for the federal hate crime.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home on 23 February 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.
The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar. Investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes and his family has always said he was just out on one of his regular jogs.
Arbery’s killing on 23 February 2020 became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice and killings of unarmed Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Those two cases also resulted in the US justice department bringing federal charges.
“I’m very thankful,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told reporters outside the courthouse after all three sentences had been imposed. “It’s been a long fight. I’m so thankful God gave us the strength to continue to fight.”
Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr, said Travis McMichael deserved to “rot” in state prison.
“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said of the crime. “You deserve no mercy.”
Wood scheduled back-to-back hearings on Monday to individually sentence each of the defendants, starting with Travis McMichael, who killed Arbery with a shotgun after the street chase initiated by his father and joined by their neighbor Bryan, who is also white.
“You acted because of the color of Mr Arbery’s skin,” the judge told Travis
McMichael, who looked ashen as the sentence was pronounced.
Gregory McMichael, testifying before he was sentenced, told Arbery’s family he prayed for “God’s peace” to come to them.
“The loss that you’ve endured is beyond description,” he said as some of Arbery’s relatives wiped away tears in a crowded courtroom.
Bryan was convicted in February of hate crimes, the jury concluding that he and the McMichaels violated Arbery’s civil rights and targeted him because of his race. All three men were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels faced additional penalties for using firearms to commit a violent crime.
A state superior court judge had already imposed life sentences for all three men in January for Arbery’s murder. Both McMichaels were denied any chance of parole and Bryan was allowed the possibility of parole, which is not available in the federal system.
Bryan told the court on Monday: “I’m glad to finally have the chance to say to Arbery’s family and friends how sorry I am for what happened to him on that day.”
Arbery’s parent have previously described to the court their heartbreak at losing their son and the devastation of the racist factor in his murder.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said: “Today marks another significant milestone in the journey for justice for Ahmaud Arbery and, we hope, a turning point in the civil rights movement.”
He added: “This sentence sends a message that vigilantes cannot hunt down and kill an innocent Black man, putting themselves in the roles of police, judge and executioner, without paying a high price – spending the rest of their lives in prison.”
All three defendants have remained jailed in coastal Glynn county.
The McMichaels had asked the judge to divert them from state to a federal prison, saying they will not be safe in a Georgia prison system that is the subject of a US justice department investigation focused on violence between inmates.
The judge has denied all three defendants the option of federal prison.
Arbery’s family had insisted the defendants serve in state prison, arguing a federal penitentiary would not be as tough.