A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a plea deal offered to a white father and son convicted of murdering Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery that would have them serve decades of their life sentences while in federal custody instead of a less desirable state facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Lisa Godbey Wood nixed the deal for Gregory McMichael, 66, and his son Travis McMichael, 35, during a hearing Monday for the latter, after prosecutors filed a notice that a deal had been reached to avoid a federal trial slated to begin next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A hearing scheduled later Monday for the elder McMichael was canceled after the judge said her decision would be the same for both men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Godbey Wood came to her decision after emotional statements from Arbery\u2019s parents and family members, who vehemently opposed the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The McMichaels and a neighbor, William \u201cRoddy\u201d Bryan, 52, all convicted last year of murdering Arbery in 2020, were sentenced earlier this month in a Georgia court to life sentences, though Bryan would be eligible for parole after 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three men also face federal hate crime charges, though the deal struck with the prosecutors would have allowed the McMichaels to serve the first 30 years of their sentences in federal prison in exchange for admitting their actions were racially motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Godbey Wood said the father and son have until Friday to decide whether to withdraw their guilty pleas and begin trial next Monday or risk receiving harsher sentences than the plea agreement called for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No deal was announced for Bryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division, said that while the department respected the court\u2019s decision, the plea deal was offered \u201conly after the victims\u2019 attorneys informed me that the family was not opposed to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Justice Department takes seriously its obligation to confer with the Arbery family and their lawyers both pursuant to the Crime Victim Rights Act and out of respect for the victim,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the judge\u2019s decision Monday, Arbery\u2019s family lashed out at the plea agreement that would have allowed Arbery\u2019s killers to dodge the harsher conditions of a state prison for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe United States Department of Justice has gone behind my back to offer the men who murdered my son a deal to make their time in prison easier for them to serve,\u201d Cooper-Jones said in a statement. \u201cI have made it clear at every possible moment that I do not agree to offer these men a plea deal of any kind. I have been completely betrayed by the DOJ lawyers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Family attorney S. Lee Merritt referred to federal prison as \u201ca country club compared to state prison.\u201d He said federal prisons are less populated, have better funding, and are \u201cgenerally more accommodating\u201d than state lockups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The McMichaels received life sentences without the possibility for parole in a Glynn County, Georgia, court for murdering Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man jogging through their neighborhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a plea deal offered to a white father and son convicted of murdering Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery that would have them serve decades of their life sentences while in federal custody instead of a less desirable state facility. Judge Lisa Godbey Wood nixed the deal for Gregory McMichael, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1232,1377,1376],"class_list":["post-2264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ahmaud-arbery","tag-gregory-mcmichael","tag-u-s-district-court-judge","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}