Federal prosecutors were rebuffed when they asked Ahmaud Arbery's mother to accept a plea deal for the three men convicted of murdering her son, her attorney said Friday (January 7) shortly before the three men were scheduled to appear in a Glynn County, Georgia, court for sentencing.

The agreement would have put the men in federal prison for 30 years, attorney S. Lee Merritt said. That would have been in addition to any prison time a state judge hands down Friday.

"She rejected that offer because we believe that today the state will move forward with life sentences without the possibility of parole, and we think that's the appropriate sentence," Merritt told national media standing beside Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery's mother.