ATLANTA — A federal judge on Monday issued another life sentence to Travis McMichael, one of three white Georgia men convicted of committing a federal hate crime for the pursuit and slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man, in February 2020.
And in an equally dramatic move, U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood rejected a request by Mr. McMichael — who was previously sentenced to life for his state murder conviction — that he be allowed to serve the first few years of the concurrent life sentences in federal prison.
His lawyer has said that Mr. McMichael has received hundreds of death threats, and argued in court that her client would be safer in the federal system and less likely to be subject to “vigilante justice.”
But a number of Mr. Arbery’s family members came to court and argued that Mr. McMichael and the two other men convicted in the killing should receive no special treatment. Marcus Arbery, Mr. Arbery’s father, said that he wanted the men to “rot in the state prison.”
“These three devils have broken my heart into pieces,” he said.
The sentencing hearing for Mr. McMichael (36), in Brunswick, Ga.’s courtroom is the first of three hearings scheduled for Monday. These men were convicted for their actions which were captured on video and shocked the nation and the entire world. Prosecutors contended that the killing of Mr. Arbery was the men’s own version of vigilante justice, motivated by racism. The second man — Mr. McMichael’s father, Greg McMichael, 66 — is set to be sentenced at 1 p.m. Eastern time, and the third man who chased Mr. Arbery, William Bryan, has a hearing at 3 p.m.
After a chase that lasted several minutes, Mr. McMichael shot and killed Mr. Arbery with a shotgun. The pursuit took place in Satilla Shores (a suburb just outside of Brunswick). The three white men followed Mr. Arbery in a pair pick-up trucks, as he tried desperately to flee.
Moments earlier, Mr. Arbery was inside a house in construction. The men who shot him said that they suspected him of committing a series property crimes. Mr. Arbery’s relatives said that Mr. Arbery, an avid runner, had been out for a Sunday jog. In court proceedings, it was revealed that all three defendants harbored racial animus toward Blacks.
Monday’s appearance was a no-go for Mr. McMichael. The judge stated that she had taken long and careful consideration into the issue of McMichael’s sentencing. She also referred to the February 2022 federal court case she presided, in which all three men had been convicted of hate crime.
It had been a fair trial, she said — “the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed.”
In addition to the life sentence for the hate-crime charge of “interference with rights,” the judge sentenced Mr. McMichael to 20 years, to be served concurrently, for attempted kidnapping and 10 years, to be served consecutively, for a federal weapons charge.
These sentences will likely have little practical impact, as Mr. McMichael is currently serving a life sentence for his conviction for state murder. McMichael had to decide where he would spend his time.
Amy Lee Copeland his lawyer described the threats he received in a court file last week.
“Hundreds of threats,” she wrote. “At 800 threats, he stopped counting in January 2022. The threats have included statements that his image has been circulated through the state prison system on contraband cellphones, that people are ‘waiting for him,’ that he should not go into the yard, and that correctional officers have promised a willingness (whether for pay or for free) to keep certain doors unlocked and backs turned to allow inmates to harm him.”
Ms. Copeland noted that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is conducting an investigation into dangerous conditions in the Georgia prison system, made worse by staffing shortages, training issues and other factors. Ms. Copeland cited a Georgia Public Broadcasting analysis which found 53 homicides in Georgia state prisons between 2020-2021.
Greg McMichael, Mr. McMichael and M. Bryan are currently held in the Glynn county Detention Center. This is where they have been since May 2020.
In her court filing, Ms. Copeland said that Mr. McMichael would “ideally” be housed in federal prison “through the term of his concurrent federal sentence,” but “at the very least” should be housed in a federal prison through the appeals process in his federal case.
In court, however, Ms. Copeland asked only for Mr. McMichael to be housed in the federal system through the appeals process, allowing for what she called a “cooling off” period that might help ensure his safety.
Ms. Copeland said she recognized the “rich irony” of being concerned about her client being a victim of vigilante justice. But she said that if he is sent to a Georgia state prison, he “effectively faces a back-door death penalty.”
Prosecutors argued against allowing Mr. McMichael to go to federal prison first, noting that convicts normally serve their time first in the prison system of the government entity that prosecuted them first — in this case, the state of Georgia.
In the end, Judge Wood said she had “neither the authority nor the inclination” to send Travis McMichael to federal prison first.
In January, a judge sentenced Greg McMichael without parole to life for the state-murder charge he was facing. Mr. Bryan was sentenced with the possibility to parole after 30 years.
Two men could now be sentenced to federal life for their hate crime convictions.
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