Three white men sentenced to life in prison for Ahmaud Arbery?s murder

A judge in Georgia sentenced Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan to life in prison on Friday for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was running through their mostly white neighborhood in February 2020 when they chased him down and killed him.

Under Georgia law, murder carries a mandatory life sentence unless prosecutors seek the death penalty. For the judge, Timothy Walmsley, the main decision was whether to grant father and son Greg McMichael, 66, and Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, Bryan, 52, a chance to earn parole.

Arbery's family had made powerful statements, asking Walmsley to show no leniency.

Before sentencing, Walmsley said: "Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and shot, and he was killed because individuals here in the courtroom took the law into their own hands."

Walmsley said Arbery left his home for a jog and ended up running for his life for five minutes as the men chased him in pickup trucks then cornered him. The judge paused for a minute, to help drive home a sense of what that time must have been like for Arbery.

"When I thought about this," he said, "I thought from a lot of different angles. I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores."

The McMichaels will spend the rest of their lives in prison. Walmsley ruled that Bryan could seek parole after 30 years, the minimum sentence allowed.