The three white men charged with the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery will head to court on Friday for their final sentencing. The hearing was scheduled to begin at 10am ET (8.30pm IST) at the Superior Court of Glynn County, Georgia, but was slightly delayed.

“The day that my family and I have prayed for has finally come, so thank you,” said Ahmaud’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones at a news conference ahead of the sentencing hearing in Georgia.

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It is understood that Arbery’s family members will deliver statements during the hearing to try and get the harshest sentence possible for the trio who murdered Ahmaud. The defendants, meanwhile, are likely to present character witnesses in a bid to secure a relatively lighter sentence.

Father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbour William ‘Roddie’ Bryan were found guilty of murdering the 25-year-old on November 24 last year by an all-white jury in Georgia. While technically, the murder charges are punishable by death in Georgia, prosecutors have not sought the death penalty.

Instead, the trio face life imprisonment, which, incidentally, is the minimum punishment for their crimes. Therefore, the real question that looms in the air on Friday is whether the judge will sentence them to life in prison with parole or without parole. However, it should be noted that even if the judge grants the trio parole, as per Georgia law, parole will not be considered for the next 30 years.

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Arbery was murdered in cold blood on February 23, 2020 in Brunswick, Georgia, after being chased around on trucks by the McMichaels and Bryan. While 35-year-old Travis pulled the trigger, Bryan captured the gruesome crime on video.

Bryan also went on to release the video, which went viral and triggered nationwide protests demanding racial justice and justice for the murdered 25-year-old. While the trio had initially not been arrested for the crime, they were finally put behind bars two months after the shooting took place.