A plea deal announced between the Justice Department and two of the three men who face federal hate crime charges for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, has been rejected by the federal judge presiding over the case.
The plea deal was struck down by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, and Arbery’s family spoke up supporting her decision.
His family shared they had no idea a plea deal was even being discussed, and they disagreed with giving the defendants one.
“Talking about a plea deal — we did not agree with that. And like I say, Ahmaud is a kid you cannot replace. And he was killed racially. And we want 100 percent justice, not no half justice,” Marcus Arbery said.
Arbery’s mother also shared her displeasure with the efforts to offer the men who killed her son a plea deal.
Wood rejected the plea agreements for Travis McMichael, 36, and his father, Gregory McMichael, 66, on Monday.
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The two bargains were identical, and now both men will see their federal case go before a jury as early as next week.
The plea deals would have meant that both father and son responsible for murdering 25-year-old Arbery would admit for the first time that the killing was racially motivated.
The deal would have also seen them spend their sentences in federal prison instead of state prison for up to 30 years. Federal prisons are often a token part of plea deals as they are generally safer than state prisons.
This is something that Arbery’s mother discussed with reporters, sharing she did want either of the two men to be in federal prison.
“It’s disrespectful. I mean, like Lee [Merritt] shared earlier, I’ve fought so hard to get these guys in state prison,” Wanda Cooper-Jones said. “And once I gave them — I told them very, very adamantly that I wanted them to go to state prison.”
It had not been indicated whether the third man involved in Arbery’s murder, William Bryan, 52, had reached a plea deal with the Justice Department like the other two men.
Prosecutors wanted the plea deals to guarantee the two men would spend serious time in prison for the murder of Arbery. The federal sentence would have run concurrently with the state sentences of life without the possibility of parole they received in November.
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Wood spoke with Arbery’s family before she gave her ruling on the plea deals.
“I’m asking on the behalf of his family, on behalf of his memory, and on behalf of fairness that you do not grant this plea in order to allow these men to transfer out of Georgia state custody into the federal prisons, where they prefer to be,” Cooper-Jones said, the New York Times reported.
Even after hearing arguments for the plea deal, which prosecutors say would “allow some healing to begin,” Wood disagreed with the deal.
She stated that allowing the deal to go through would have forced her to agree to its exact terms.
She continued saying, “having considered all that was said today, and looking back at the law that governs these agreements, it is my decision to reject the plea agreement.”