The white father and son convicted in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him through a Georgia neighborhood were sentenced Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime. A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Travis McMichael and his father Greg McMichael, 66, of Brunswick. Both had previously been sentenced to life without parole in state court for Arbery’s murder. A federal jury in February convicted Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan of violating Arbery’s civil rights, concluding that they targeted him because he was black. All three were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping and the McMichaels were convicted of using weapons to commit a violent crime. The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a truck to chase after Arbery after the 25-year-old ran past their home on February 23, 2020. Bryan joined the chase in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting him. Arbery with a shotgun. The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar. Investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crime. U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godby Wood said Monday that Travis McMichael had a fair trial. “And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arberi didn’t get before he was shot and killed,” the judge said. Before the two convictions, he heard from members of Arbery’s family. His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she felt every shot that hit her son every day. “It’s so unfair, so unfair, so unfair that he was killed when he wasn’t even committing a crime,” he said. Greg McMichael addressed the Arbery family before he was sentenced, saying their loss was “beyond description”. “I’m sure my words mean very little to you, but I want to assure you that I never wanted any of this to happen, that there was no malice in my heart or my son’s heart that day,” he said. Travis McMichael declined to address the court, but his attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said her client had no convictions prior to Arberry’s murder and had served in the U.S. Coast Guard. He said a lighter sentence would be more consistent with what similar defendants have received in other cases, noting that the police officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 21 years in prison for violating civil rights of Floyd, although he was not charged. targeting Floyd because of his race. Arbery’s killing became part of a broader national reckoning on racial injustice and the killings of unarmed black men, including Floyd and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. These two cases also resulted in federal charges being filed by the US Department of Justice. “The evidence we presented at trial proved … what so many people felt in their hearts when they watched the video of Ahmaud’s tragic and unnecessary death: This would never have happened if he were white,” prosecutor Christopher Perras said before the Travis McMichael. was convicted. The McMichaels were among three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. Bryan had a scheduled sentencing hearing later Monday. A state Superior Court judge sentenced all three men to life in prison in January for Arberry’s murder, with the two McMichaels refusing any chance of parole. All three defendants remained jailed in coastal Glynn County, in the custody of U.S. marshals, awaiting sentencing following their federal convictions in January. Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in state court, protocol would have them turned over to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their life sentences in state prison. In court filings last week, both Travis and Greg McMichael asked a judge to divert them to a federal prison, saying they would not be safe in a Georgia prison system that is the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation focused on to violence between prisoners. Copeland said during Monday’s hearing for Travis McMichael that her client has received hundreds of death threats once he arrives at the state prison and that his picture has been circulated on illegal phones there. “I am concerned your honor that my client is essentially facing the death penalty through the back door,” he said, adding that “retribution and revenge” were not sentencing factors, even for a defendant who is “publicly reviled.” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said Travis McMichael had shown his son no mercy and deserved to “rot” in state prison. “You killed him because he was black and you hate black people,” he said. “You deserve no mercy.” Wood said she did not have the authority to order the state to relinquish custody of Travis McMichael to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but she also was unwilling to do so in his case. He also refused to keep Greg McMichael in federal custody. During the hate crimes trial in February, prosecutors bolstered their case that Arbery’s killing was racially motivated by showing jurors about a dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racial slurs and made disparaging comments about black people. Defense attorneys for the three men argued that the McMichaels and Bryan did not pursue Arbery because of his race, but acted on a serious — if mistaken — suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood.
