A racist dad and his son have both received hate crime life sentences following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
On Monday, a US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced Gregory McMichael, 66, and his son Travis McMichael, 36, to life in prison for the federal hate crime in the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery, 25.
The pair were convicted of violating Arbery's civil rights by attacking him because of his race, and of attempted kidnapping.
Arbery, an avid jogger, was reportedly running through the leafy Satilla Shores neighbourhood, near Brunswick, on a February 2020 afternoon when the McMichaels decided to grab their guns, jump in a pickup truck and give chase.
Their neighbour, Bryan, then joined in his own pickup truck, and pulled out his cellphone to record Travis firing a shotgun at Arbery at close range.
Arbery had nothing on him, and was wearing running clothes and trainers.
The younger McMichael, a former U.S. Coast Guard mechanic - who shot Arbery - was handed life without parole plus ten years; while Gregory, a former Glynn County police officer received life without parole.
Both are already serving life sentences - with no possibility of parole after being convicted of Arbery's murder in a state trial last November.
Last year, the two men, including William 'Roddie' Bryan, 52 - who filmed the murder - were convicted in state court of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony, with a jury rejecting self-defence claims.
In handing down the younger McMichael's sentence, Wood said the widely seen video footage of him shooting Arbery at close range was seared into her memory.
"You acted because of the colour of Mr. Arbery's skin," the judge told McMichael, who looked pale as the sentence was pronounced.
However, there was a snag in the trial for the McMichaels, after their plea to move to a federal prison and serve their sentences there was refused.
Travis' lawyers claimed that transferring him would be safer than the state prison, over fears the notorious shooting has angered other inmates who now seek revenge.
Attorney Amy Lee Copeland, told the court: "I'm concerned that my client faces an effective backdoor death penalty.
"I understand the rich irony, judge, of expressing that my client will face vigilante justice himself."
Meanwhile, William 'Roddie' Bryan, 52, was sentenced for hate crimes by a US District Court judge in Brunswick, Georgia on Monday afternoon.
Testifying before he was sentenced, Gregory McMichael told Arbery's family he prayed that "God's peace" would to come to them, saying: "The loss that you've endured is beyond description," as some of Arbery's relatives wiped away their tears in the courtroom.
"I'm sure that my words mean very little to you, but I want to assure you I never wanted any of this to happen. There was no malice in my heart or my son's heart that day."
He also went on to apologise to his son, who had earlier declined his own chance to testify - and did not explicitly apologise to Arbery's family.
According to reports however, Arbery's family looked directly at Travis several times during their victim impact statements before his sentencing.
During the men's first hearing, Marcus Arbery, the slain man's father, told the court: "These three devils have broken my heart into pieces that cannot be found or repaired."
Referring to Travis McMichael, he added: "You hate Black people."
"I struggled to come to the realisation that a father could actually accompany his son to take a life," Wanda Cooper Jones, Arbery's mother, told the second hearing - and urged for a life sentence to be handed to Gregory McMichael.
Arbery's case is one in a series of killings of Black people in recent years that have drawn attention to the issue of racism in the U.S. criminal justice system and law enforcement.
It also highlighted the broader issue of U.S. gun violence.
