Federal Judge Rejects Hate Crime Plea Deals in Ahmaud Arbery Killing
The New York Times
The victim’s mother had denounced the deals made with two of the men convicted of murder, saying she did not want them transferred to federal custody instead of state prison.
ATLANTA — A federal judge on Monday rejected plea agreements with the Justice Department for two of the three white men facing hate crime charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery after his family expressed fierce opposition to the deal.
It was a surprising and extraordinary twist in a case in which a 25-year-old Black man was chased through a southern Georgia neighborhood by three white men and then shot to death. The plea deals would have been the first time that any of the men had admitted that Mr. Arbery’s killing was racially motivated.
All three men had been convicted of murder in state court in November. Mr. Arbery’s family angrily objected to the federal plea agreement because it would have sent at least two of them immediately to federal prison instead of state prison for up to 30 years. Federal prison is generally considered safer than state prison.
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