The three men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery have been sentenced.
Today, 35-year-old Travis McMichael, his father, 66-year-old Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor, 52-year-old William "Roddie" Bryan, were sentenced after being convicted on multiple charges, including felony murder, in the 2020 killing of the 25-year-old Arbery.
Travis McMichael was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 20 years. Gregory McMichael also received life without the possibility of parole plus 20 years.
William "Roddie" Bryan was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
Prior to announcing the sentences, Judge Timothy Walmsley referenced the five-minute chase of Arbery, saying: "When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles, and I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores."
Amid the sentencing hearing, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, asked the court to slap the three men with the maximum sentence.
"These men have chose to lie and attack my son and his surviving family," Cooper-Jones said. "They each have no remorse and do not deserve any leniency."
Additionally, Ahmaud's father told the court in his victim impact statement: "I'll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again."
"When I close my eyes, I see his execution in my mind over and over. I'll see that for the rest of my life," Marcus Arbery added.
During the sentencing hearing, the attorney for Gregory McMichael said that he "never wanted another person to die". Per CNN, attorney Laura Hogue argued that McMichael's lack of intent should be considered when it came to his sentence.
"If life without parole is a sentence that is held for only the worst of the worst, it simply can’t be a sentence for a person who never intended that tragic result that took place," Hogue said.
The defense teams for all three men asked the court for life sentences with the possibility of parole, CNN adds.
The trio of white men was convicted of chasing and fatally shooting Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, by a Georgia jury in November. Since then, they have been held at Glynn County Detention Centre - the same facility where they have been held since their arrest.
Arbery was out for a Sunday jog in February 2020 when Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 65, gave chase with weapons.
The father and son believed Arbery had committed a crime in their Satilla Shores neighborhood - located just outside of Brunswick - and claim to have been conducting a citizens arrest, CNN reports.
They were joined along the way by their neighbor, William 'Roddie' Bryan, who recorded the pursuit from his pickup truck. In the video, Travis McMichael can be seen tussling with Arbery over a shotgun before fatally shooting him.
Authorities were slow to react to the killing, which the McMichael's claimed to have happened in self-defense, and which Bryan maintained he had no part in.
The trio was so confident in their innocence that they released the video footage to the public - a decision that led to many members of the public calling for their arrest.
When the case was brought to trial, all three men pleaded not guilty to the murder charges brought against them.
After 11 hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Travis McMichael on all nine charges: malice murder, four counts of felony murder, aggravated assault with a shotgun, aggravated assault with a pickup truck, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony.
His father - a former Georgia police officer - was found not guilty of malice murder but was convicted on all the remaining charges.
Meanwhile, Bryan was convicted of three felony murder counts alongside charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal intent to commit a felony.
This is not the last time Ahmaud Arbery's killers will appear in court. All three have been indicted on federal hate crime charges - to which they have all pleaded not guilty.
Jury selection for the federal hate crime trial will begin on February 7.
