Travis McMichael is the first of three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia neighbourhood in 2020 was sentenced on Monday to life in prison for his hate crime.
Travis McMichael had killed Arbery with a shotgun after the street chase was initiated by his father and joined by one of his neighbor, was the first of the three defendants to be sentenced on Monday. The U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood scheduled back-to-back hearings to individually sentence each of the defendants.
The McMichaels and Bryan faced possible life sentences after a jury had convicted them in February because of federal hate crimes, saying that they violated Arbery’s civil rights and targeted him because of his race.
Moreover, both McMichaels have been denied any chance of parole, “give you a backstop in the event that an appellate court decides there was some kind of error in the course of the state trial,” said Michael Moore, an Atlanta lawyer and former U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Georgia.
However, the McMichaels have told the police they had suspected Arbery had been stealing from a nearby house under construction.
Although, authorities later concluded he was unarmed and had committed no crimes. Arbery’s family also has long insisted he was merely out jogging.
