BRUNSWICK, Ga. – A federal judge has denied a request to acquit three men convicted of hate crimes against Ahmaud Arbery.
The sentencing hearing for Travis McMichael, his father, Greg, and William “Roddie” Bryan is scheduled for Monday.
Travis McMichael also filed a separate motion similar to the one his father filed earlier this week, asking to serve his sentence in federal prison instead of a Georgia state prison.
The white man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery after chasing the running Black man in a Georgia neighborhood says he fears he will be killed by fellow inmates if he’s sent to a state prison to serve a life sentence for murder.
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The motion filed by his attorney added her client has received over 800 threats.
Travis McMichael, 36, faces sentencing Monday in U.S. District Court after his conviction on federal hate crime charges in February. His defense attorney filed a legal motion Thursday asking the judge to keep McMichael in federal custody.
Attorney Amy Lee Copeland argued McMichael has received “hundreds of threats” and won’t be safe in a Georgia state prison system that is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department amid concerns about violence between inmates.
In the motion, Travis McMichael’s attorney wrote the threats have included statements that his picture has been passed around through the state prison system. She said people are “waiting for him.” His attorney also said some inmates are telling him he shouldn’t go into the yard.
On Feb. 23, 2020, McMichael and his father, Greg McMichael, armed themselves with guns and jumped in a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home just outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.
The McMichaels said they suspected Arbery was a burglar, though investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes when he was killed. Still, no one was charged until more than two months later, when the graphic video of the shooting leaked online and sparked a national outcry.
The killing of Arbery became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice amid other high-profile killings of unarmed Black people including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.
In Georgia, the McMichaels and Bryan were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of Arbery’s murder in a state court last fall. They have remained in a county jail in custody of U.S. marshals since standing trial in February in federal court, where a jury convicted them of hate crimes. Each defendant now faces a potential second life sentence.
Greg McMichael’s attorney, in a similar motion to Travis’ filed earlier this week, asked for his sentence to be reduced. His attorney called for Greg McMichael, 66, to serve 20 years instead of another life sentence. He added his client should be transferred to federal prison for safety reasons. The motion also cited health issues plus his decades-long career in law enforcement. As part of the filing, Greg McMichael’s attorney included a letter from his wife, Leigh.
The letter said, “Please have mercy on Greg. His intention in this tragedy was not to hurt anyone.”
Arbery’s family vehemently opposes the motions. They have insisted the McMichaels and Bryan should serve their sentences in a state prison, arguing a federal penitentiary wouldn’t be as tough. His parents objected forcefully before the federal trial when both McMichaels sought a plea deal that would have included a request to transfer them to federal prison. The judge ended up rejecting the plea agreement.
“Granting these men their preferred choice of confinement would defeat me,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told the judge at a hearing Jan. 31. “It gives them one last chance to spit in my face.”
All three men are scheduled to be sentenced on Monday with Travis McMichael going first.
A jury convicted all three in February of committing hate crimes, concluding 25-year-old Arbery had been targeted because he was Black.
BREAKING: Ahmaud Arbery’s killers — Gregory and Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan — have been found GUILTY of federal hate crime charges for violating Arbery’s civil rights and targeting him because he was Black. pic.twitter.com/PhmemNGtDL
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) February 22, 2022
Once the men are sentenced Monday by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, protocol would be to turn them over the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their prison terms for murder. That’s because they were first arrested and tried by state authorities.
For Travis McMichael, “his concern is that he will promptly be killed upon delivery to the state prison system for service of that sentence,” Copeland wrote in her sentencing request. “He has received numerous threats of death that are credible in light of all circumstances.”
Copeland said she has alerted Georgia’s corrections agency, “which has replied that these threats are unverified and that it can securely house McMichael in state custody.”
A federal judge doesn’t have the authority to order a state to relinquish its lawful custody of inmates to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said Ed Tarver, an Augusta lawyer and former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
“She can certainly make that request,” Tarver said of the judge, “and it would be up to the state Department of Corrections whether or not they agree to do that.”
Copeland’s court filing refers to a prior agreement between the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys to keep the McMichaels and Bryan in federal custody “through the completion of the federal trial and any post-trial proceedings.” She argued that means Travis McMichael should at least remain in federal custody through appeals of his hate crime conviction.
Travis McMichael is set for sentencing at 10 a.m. Monday, Greg McMichael is set for 1 p.m. Monday and Bryan is set for 3 p.m. Monday.
