A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Travis McMichael and his father Greg McMichael, 66, of Brunswick, Ga. Both had previously been sentenced to life without parole in state court for Arberry’s murder. Their neighbor, William (Roddy) Bryan, 52, who recorded cellphone video of the killing, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. A federal jury in February convicted Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and Bryan of violating Arbery’s civil rights, concluding that he was targeted 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. A mural by Ahmaud Arbery is displayed on the side of the Brunswick African American Cultural Center in downtown Brunswick, Ga., on October 19, 2021. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)
A fair trial for an “unjust” murder
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.
Calculating racial injustice
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. Those two cases also resulted in the Department of Justice bringing federal charges. “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 had been white,” District Attorney Christopher Perras said before Travis was sentenced McMichael. . 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 McMichael and Bryan were not after Arberry because of his race, but acted on a serious — if mistaken — suspicion that Arberry had committed crimes in their neighborhood. WATCHES | Three men were convicted of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery:
Three men convicted of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder have been jailed for life
The three white Georgia men convicted of killing 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced to life in prison. 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, Ga., in the custody of U.S. marshals while 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’m concerned, your honor, that my client is essentially facing a death sentence behind the 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. WATCHES | The officers involved in the Breonna Taylor raid were charged with:
4 police officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor are charged with civil rights violations
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged four Kentucky police officers involved in the fatal raid that killed Breonna Taylor with a wide range of offenses, including civil rights violations.
