The three men who were accused of killing the African-American Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 were found guilty of all charges during the trial federal court for hate crimes that was held this Tuesday.
After reading the verdict of Lisa Godbey Wood, the judge in charge, there was no perceptible reaction on the part of the defendants, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan, reported CNN.
Wood addressed each of the defendants and their lawyers to inform them that they will have a term of days to file any post-trial motions, adding that the probation office will do a pre-sentencing interview before that is scheduled audience.
The verdict was delivered a day before the second anniversary of Arbery’s murder, and came after that in January all three defendants were found guilty of murder in a Georgia state court, with a life sentence for the McMichaels, and the possibility of parole starting at 30 years of sentence for Bryan.
Also, the president of the jury, who was one of the three African-American members , had a visible emotion with tears included in the middle of reading the verdict.
“Ahmaud will continue to rest in peace. But now he will begin to rest in power,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, to the press outside the courthouse.
For his part, Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., He bowed his head and gave a silent celebration by shaking his fists as the guilty verdicts were read, then pressed his hands in front of his face in an apparent sign of prayer, the Associated Press reported.
Cooper-Jones and Arbery Sr. left the courthouse holding hands with their attorney Ben Crump, and then raised them intertwined while the fans who were in the place flooded them with applause.
However, Cooper-Jones does not see this verdict as a true triumph, as he admitted to the press that they will never be victorious as Ahmaud is gone forever.
“Ahmaud was a child you can’t replace, because of the heart he had,” said Arbery Sr. “I’m struggling with that every day. It hurts every day.”
In late January, Judge Wood had rejected a plea deal reached between prosecutors and Travis McMichael, who directly shot Arbery on hate crime charges , that given a positive response by the judge, the federal trial could have been prevented.
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The agreement called for McMichael to plead guilty to a single hate crime charge in exchange for prosecutors recommending that he serve alone 30 years in federal prison.