The three white men who shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
The judge said that the actions of the McMichaels showed little remorse for the killing of the 25-year-old Black man.
Judge Timothy Walmsley said this was a killing. "It was callous."
William "Roddie" Bryan was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but only after 30 years.
The parents and sister of Arbery argued that the three men who killed Arbery should have been given the most severe sentence, because they couldn't intimidate him away from their neighborhood.
"This was not a case of mistaken identity or mistaken fact," Wanda Cooper-Jones told the court. They didn't want my son in their community so they targeted him. They chose to treat him differently than other people. They killed him when they couldn't scare him.
The judge cited her comment as he handed out the sentence for the three men.
He said that the man was killed because people in the courtroom took the law into their own hands.
The McMichaels and Bryan were found guilty of felony murder in November for the daytime killing that was captured on video. Arbery was shot while running on a two-lane road in Georgia.
The McMichaels told police that they had been in the neighborhood and that they were chasing Arbery in their truck. The men confronted him. Arbery was killed after a struggle with a shotgun.
The three men who had chased down Arbery before McMichael shot and killed him were not arrested for more than two months. The leaking of the video made people angry and made them question how local authorities were handling the investigation. A former prosecutor has been charged with violating her oath of office and obstructing the investigation.
The three men should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and Arbery's parents agreed with the harsher sentence.
Marcus Arbery said that he sees his son's execution in his mind over and over. "My family and I have to live with his death for the rest of our lives, so his killers should spend the rest of their lives thinking about what they did and what they took from us."
As he handed down his sentence, Walmsley pointed out the chilling scenes from the video, which he said appeared to point to the defendants' demeanor immediately after the killing.
He said that one scene that stuck out in his mind was when McMichael pointed the shotgun at Arbery.
Walmsley said that he kept thinking about the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores.
The judge said he was struck by the video immediately after Arbery was shot.
The McMichaels turned their backs after Ahmaud Arbery fell. "They left."
Defense attorneys asked for a lighter sentence of life with the possibility of parole, pointing to the men's lack of criminal history and community service before the 2020 killing.
Laura Hogue told the court that Greg McMichael was a good man, pointing out that he was an investigator with the prosecutor's office. "He's not a perfect person, no one is, but he's lived a good life, a life dedicated to service and that does count for something."
Bryan's attorney asked the court for a lighter sentence than the mandatory minimum, arguing that Bryan had expressed remorse over Arbery's death.
He expressed remorse over Mr. Arbery's death even before he was arrested on national television. The Arbery family doesn't have to, and we can understand why.
Bryan told one of the police officers that he sometimes hoped he had hit Arbery with his truck to prevent the shooting from taking place.
Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski argued that the three should be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for taking acts of vigilantism to confront Arbery.
Dunikoski told the judge that Hogue was comparing the men's actions to a neighborhood watch and that they were good witnesses.
"That's what neighborhood watch is supposed to be, not someone running after people in a residential neighborhood," she said.
She asked the judge to take into account the demeanor of McMichael when he testified.
She said that the worst day of her life was when McMichael said that. How did that work out for Ahmaud Arbery?
Dunikoski said that Greg McMichael used his past as a law enforcement officer for his defense and that he ignored his training and experience for actions that benefited him.
She said that Greg McMichael leaked the video of the fatal shooting to his attorney in hopes of getting a better case.
She said he ignored his training and released evidence.
She said that he believed it would exonerate him. A lack of remorse or empathy is what he and his son believe they did not do.
