Man Convicted of Arbery Murder Faces Federal Hate Crime Sentence

Months later,was sentenced to life in prison for murder, but the three white men who tracked down and killed Ahmad Arbery in his Georgia neighborhood died Monday. was sentenced to a second criminal sentence in Federal hate crimeperpetrated in the deadly pursuit of a 25-year-old black man.

U.S. District Judge Lisa Godby Wood sentenced each defendant individually, starting with Travis McMichael, who blew up Arbery with a shotgun after a street chase initiated by her father. A series of public hearings were scheduled to be held. her neighbor.

The February 23, 2020 murder of Arbery is part of a larger national assessment of racial injustice and the killing of unarmed black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. became. Those two of his cases also resulted in the Department of Justice filing charges with the federal government.

When they returned to court in Georgia on Monday, McMichael, his father Greg His McMichael, and neighbor William "Lody" Bryan , facing the possibility of life in prison after a jury found them guilty. His February of a federal hate crime.All three men, who violated Arbery's civil rights and concluded thattargeted him because of his race, were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping. , McMichaels uses firearms to commit violent crimes that face additional penalties.

Their punishment in federal court was ultimately It can be iconic. A state high court judge sentenced all three of his men to life in prison in January for Arbery's murder.

All three defendants were imprisoned in coastal Glynn County under the control of the U.S. Marshals while awaiting sentencing after federal convictions in January. stay.

They were first charged with murder in a state court and convicted, so the protocol required the Georgia State Correctional Service to serve life imprisonment. It was to be handed over to the station. in state prison.

In court filings last week, Travis and Greg McMichael told judges that they were not safe in the Georgia prison system under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice, and instead sent to federal prisons. The investigation focused on violence among inmates who sought to be transferred to

Arbery's family argued that Mr. and Mrs. McMichael and Brian should serve time in state prison, and that federal prison was less harsh. When he sought a plea bargain that included a request to transfer him to prison, his parents vehemently opposed it before the federal trial.

An Augusta state attorney and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, he said, according to Ed Tarver, that federal judges had to waive lawful custody of inmates to the Federal Prison Service. It has no authority to order the states to do so. He said a judge could require that the state Department of Corrections extradite the defendant to federal prison. After spotting Arbery running in front of his house outside, he armed himself with a gun and jumped into his truck to chase Arbery. Brian joined the chase in his truck and helped out. Cut off Arbery's escape. He also recorded cell phone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range as Arbery threw a punch and grabbed a shotgun.

McMichaels told police he suspected Arbery had robbed a nearby house under construction. , concluded that he was unarmed and had not committed a crime.Arbery's family has maintained that Arbery was merely jogging.

Nevertheless, Arbery's death More than two months passed before the indictment was filed. McMichaels and Brian were arrested after graphic videos of the shootings leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. During the trial, prosecutors showed jurors around 20 text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Brian used racist slurs and made slanderous comments, suggesting that Arbery's murder had been committed. bolstered their claims that they were motivated by racism. about black people. One woman testified that she heard her angry rant from Greg McMichael in 2015.

Attorneys for the three defendants acted on a serious suspicion that Arbery committed a crime in their neighborhood, not that the McMichaels and Brian tracked him down because of his race.

In:
• Ahmaud Arbery
• Georgia
• Murder
• Civil Rights
• Hate Crime
• Crime