BRUNSWICK, GA –
The white father and son convicted of murder in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arberry 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 were previously sentenced to life in prison without parole in state court for Arbury’s murder.
In February, a federal jury convicted Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddy” Bryan of violating Arberry’s civil rights, concluding that they targeted him because he was black. All three were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and McMichaels was convicted of using a weapon in the commission of a felony.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase after Arbury after the 25-year-old ran past their home on February 23, 2020. Brian joined the chase in his own truck and recorded Travis McMichael’s cellphone video. who shot Arbury with a shotgun.
The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbury was a thief. Investigators determined that he was unarmed and committed no crimes.
U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godby Wood said Monday that Travis McMichael received a fair trial.
“And it’s not lost on the court that this was the kind of trial Ahmaud Arbery didn’t get before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
She spoke with members of Arbury’s family before both sentencings. His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she felt every shot that was fired at her son every day.
“It’s so unfair, so unfair, so unfair that he was killed when he didn’t even commit a crime,” she said.
Greg McMichael addressed the Arbury family before he was sentenced, saying their loss was “indescribable”.
“I’m sure my words mean very little to you, but I want to assure you that I never meant for any of this to happen, there was no malice in my heart or my son’s heart that day,” he said.
Travis McMichael declined to speak in court, but his attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said her client had no convictions before Arbury’s murder and served in the U.S. Coast Guard. She said a lighter sentence would be more in line with what defendants with similar charges have received in other cases, noting that the police officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, received 21 years in prison for violating civil Floyd’s rights, even though he was not accused of targeting Floyd because of his race.
Arberry’s killing became part of a larger national reckoning with racial injustice and the killings of unarmed black people, 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 Ahmoud’s tragic and unnecessary death: This would never have happened if he had been white,” said prosecutor Christopher Peras before Travis McMichael was convicted.
The McMichaels were among three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. Bryan had a sentencing hearing scheduled for later Monday.
A state Supreme Court judge sentenced all three men to life in January for Arberry’s murder, with both McMichaels denied any chance of parole.
All three defendants remain in the coastal Glynn County jail, in the custody of U.S. Marshals, pending sentencing following their federal convictions in January.
Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in state court, protocol would have turned them 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 the judge to instead transfer 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 on violence between prisoners.
Copeland said during Monday’s hearing for Travis McMichael that her client received hundreds of threats that he would be killed as soon as he arrived at the state prison and that his photo was circulated there on illegal phones.
“I am concerned, your honor, that my client is facing a backdoor death sentence,” she said, adding that “retribution and revenge” are not sentencing factors, even for a defendant who is “publicly reviled.”
Arberry’s father, Marcus Arberry Sr., said Travis McMichael showed no mercy to his son and deserves 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 turn custody of Travis McMichael over to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but she was also reluctant to do so in his case. She also refused to release Greg McMichael into federal custody.
During the February hate crime trial, prosecutors bolstered their case that Arbury’s killing was racially motivated by showing the jury about two dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Brian used racial slurs and made disparaging comments about black people.
Defense attorneys for the three men argued that McMichaels and Bryan did not persecute Arbury because of his race, but acted on a serious — if mistaken — suspicion that Arbury had committed crimes in their neighborhood.
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