Daniella Silva is a reporter for NBC News, focusing on education and the impact of laws, policies and practices on students and teachers. She also writes about immigration.
The 36-year-old man who shot Ahmaud Arbery was sentenced Monday to life in prison and his 10-year sentence on federal hate crime charges. .
The judge also requested that Travis McMichael serve time in state prison, rather than federal prison as his attorney had requested.
McMichael's ruling is the first of his three consecutive rulings involved in the attack.
McMichael's father, Greg McMichael, 66, and his neighbor William "Rodi" Bryan, 52, are also due to be sentenced on Monday.
When the defendants confronted him in February 2020, two of them, all white, for the murder of Arbery, a black man who was running in his neighborhood, he was sent to federal court in February. He was convicted of a hate crime charge. The three men were found guilty of all federal charges against them, including hate crimes, attempted kidnapping and use of firearms to commit crimes.
A federal lawsuit followed his November state trial,convicting him of murder, and giving him a life sentence.That If they appealed the conviction.
A federal hate crime trial focused on the histories of three men and their racial prejudices. Prosecutors in state cases largely avoided this motive. Institutional racism and police bias.
McMichaels and Bryan tracked his 25-year-old Arbery in a truck through the coastal regions of Georgia. Men who spotted Arbery running by the house cornered him, and Travis McMichael fatally shot him with a shotgun.[27] Brian filmed the fatal encounter on his cell phone. did.
Months after the shooting,the men were arrested after Brian's phone video was released and increased national attention. The case was then handed over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Arbery's family and civil rights leaders likened his death to a modern-day lynching.
McMichaels tried to plead guilty to hate crimes before trial, butwas forced into a plea bargain after Arbery's parents protested that the men would be arrested. was dismissed by the judge . You can serve time in federal prisons, not state prisons.
Federal prosecutors worked to establish that Arbery's murder was caused by strong male prejudice against blacks. This included analysts and neighbors and former colleagues of McMichaels..
The defense said the messages and social media posts were taken out of context and troubling. Even if he did, he claimed the man wasn't driven by racial prejudice to track down and kill Arbery.He called for a life sentence, but said his client still deserves a "significant period of imprisonment," the Associated Press reported. McMichael's defense team also asked the judge to transfer him to federal prison, which allowed McMichael to avoid serving time for murder in Georgia's state prison system.
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