Travis McMichael was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. His punishment is largely symbolic, as McMichael was sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for Arbery’s murder.
Wood said McMichael had received a “fair trial.”
“And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
McMichael was one of three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. His father, Greg McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan had sentencing hearings scheduled later Monday.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home on Feb. 23, 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.
The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar. Investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes.
Arbery’s killing on Feb. 23, 2020, became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice and killings of unarmed Black people including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Those two cases also resulted in the Justice Department bringing federal charges.
Wood scheduled back-to-back hearings Monday to individually sentence each of the defendants, starting with Travis McMichael, who killed Arbery with a shotgun after the street chase initiated by his father and joined by a neighbor, who are also white.
Greg McMichael and Bryan also face possible life sentences after a jury convicted them in February of federal hate crimes, concluding that they violated Arbery’s civil rights and targeted him because of his race. All three men were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels face additional penalties for using firearms to commit a violent crime.