SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Three white men face sentencing by a judge Friday roughly six weeks after being convicted of murder for chasing a running Ahmaud Arbery in pickup trucks, cutting off the unarmed Black man’s escape and fatally blasting him with a shotgun.
The guilty verdicts handed down the day before Thanksgiving prompted a victory celebration outside the Glynn County courthouse for those who saw Arbery’s death as part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice.
Testimony in court will likely be more sorrowful Friday, when members of Arbery’s family are expected to bare their grief and loss to the judge before he imposes punishments on father and son Greg and Travis McMichael and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan.
Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison under Georgia law unless prosecutors seek the death penalty, which they opted against for Arbery’s killing. For Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley, the main decision will be whether to grant the defendants an eventual chance to earn parole.
