By Rich McKay and Jonathan Allen
ATLANTA (Reuters) – One of three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man chased down and shot while jogging, was due back in court on Friday after a U.S. district judge rejected his plea bargain on federal hate-crimes charges as overly preferential.
Travis McMichael, 36, had reached a deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty on condition that his 30-year sentence for civil rights offenses be served in a federal prison before he was handed back to the state of Georgia to serve out his life term for murder.
His father and co-defendant, Gregory McMichael, 66, had struck a similar bargain with federal prosecutors for himself.
The younger McMichael appeared for a hearing to formally enter his guilty plea on Monday, admitting in court for the first time that he had attacked Arbery because of the victim’s race.
But U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Wood, in an unusual move, said she would refuse to accept either plea deal, citing objections by Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, and other relatives.
The Georgia prison system is widely perceived as a tougher environment for its inmates compared with federal penitentiaries.
Federal prosecutors and lawyers for the elder McMichael filed a joint notice of withdrawal of his plea deal on Thursday, reaffirming his earlier guilty plea and declaring he was ready to proceed to trial.
The younger McMichael was scheduled to return to federal court in Brunswick, Georgia, on Friday for a hearing where he was likewise expected to formally withdraw the plea agreement.
There was no indication that Travis McMichael would seek to negotiate a new deal with prosecutors, or that a second co-defendant, neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, was considering a plea bargain.
A state court jury found all three men guilty in November of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent in the February 2020 shotgun slaying of Arbery, 25, in a residential area outside the coastal Georgia town of Brunswick.
Arbery was shot to death by the younger McMichael after all three defendants chased him down in pickup trucks as he jogged through the suburban neighborhood they shared.
The jury rejected claims by the McMichaels’ lawyers that their clients were seeking to make a citizen’s arrest of Arbery, whom they suspected of criminal activity, and had acted in self-defense when they confronted him.
Bryan had asserted that he was an innocent bystander who merely followed along and recorded the deadly encounter on video, which ultimately went viral, sparking public outrage after months passed before any arrests were made.
The McMichaels were sentenced last month to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while Bryan received a life sentence with eligibility for parole after 30 years.
All three defendants had been due to stand trial on the federal civil rights charges on Monday.
The U.S. Justice Department has continued speaking with Arbery’s relatives about their wishes this week, according to Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the family.
“The family has been loud and clear on this,” he said on Thursday. “They want the men to remain in state prison, and think a trial would better get to “the truth of the mindsets of the defendants.” “We don’t want them in comfort, because they didn’t give that to my son,” Marcus Arbery said. “We don’t want them to see daylight again, and we don’t want to make it easy for them.”
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for Georgia’s Southern District headquartered in Savannah said he could not comment before Friday’s proceedings. A lawyer for the elder McMichael declined to comment, and a lawyer for the younger McMichael did not respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Gerry Doyle)
