Judge Timothy R. Walmsley sentenced father and son Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. to life in prison for their felony murder of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, GA in February 2020.
Bryan will be eligible for parole in 30 years; the McMichaels have no possibility for parole. As he sentenced the murderers, Judge Walmsley had the courtroom sit in silence for one minute to have everyone present get a feel for at least a fraction of the five minutes Arbery was chased and terrorized by his now-convicted killers.
“When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles,” Walmsley said, “and I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores.”
These thoughts were likely never far from Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, his father Marcus Arbery, or the rest of his family.
To quote nbcnews.com:
Arbery’s parents and sister, who spoke before the sentences were handed down, asked the judge to show no lenience.
“The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again. Not at a general table. Not at a holiday. And not at a wedding,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said before the sentence was announced.
“His killers should spend the rest of their lives thinking about what they did and what they took from us and they should do it behind bars because me and my family have to do it for the rest of their life.”
Attorneys for all three of Arbery’s murderers have said they intend to appeal the convictions.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/us/judge-timothy-walmsley-minute-of-silence-arbery/index.html
