Ahmaud Arbery Case LIVE: Closing Arguments
Evidence closed in this trial last week; today we expect closing arguments, perhaps start of jury deliberations
Welcome to our ongoing coverage of the Ahmaud Arbery case trial! We will share any fast-breaking news on today’s closing arguments, as well as any verdicts and events around the jury deliberations which may begin today. (When deliberations start we will have a new VERDICT WATCH post. (If you’re unfamiliar with this case, scroll down for background information.)
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Background
Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was shot and killed on February 23, 2020 when he charged an armed Travis McMichael on a Georgia roadway and fought McMichael for control of his shotgun. Travis McMichael was standing beside his stopped pickup truck at the time, and his father Greg McMichael was in the bed of the truck armed with a pistol.
The McMichaels had been pursuing Arbery in the belief that he was a serial felony burglary who had been plaguing their suburban neighborhood for weeks. A short distance from where the shooting took place, neighbor William “Roddy” Bryan followed in his own vehicle, making a shaky recording of the final confrontation on his cell phone–it was this video that would bring this case to national attention a few weeks after the shooting took place, and after initial prosecutorial review had resulted in no charges against either the McMichaels or Bryan.
The defense in this trial is arguing that the men were acting consistently with a lawful citizens arrest of a fleeing suspect for whom they had “reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion” of being in flight from a felony–the controlling language from the then-existing Georgia citizen’s arrest law, a law which has since been repealed as a consequence of this event. In the course of executing this citizen’s arrest, Travis McMichaels was attacked by Arbery, who fought him for control of his shotgun, and Travis ultimately shot Arbery in lawful sef-defense.
In fact, Arbery is known to have “visited” a home under construction, from which costly items had been repeatedly stolen, at least five times, each visit captured on surveillance cameras installed in an effort to quell the thefts. The prosecution argues that there’s no evidence that Arbery actually stole any of the taken items, but George felony burglary law does not require an actual taking of property–unlawfully entering a property for the purpose of committing a crime is felony burglary under Georgia law even if nothing is actually taken. Both McMichaels had seen these surveillance videos, and on the day in question had observed Arbery in apparent flight from the burglary scene–conduct the prosecution and media characterize as mere recreational jogging.
The State argument of guilt is that these three white men coordinated to threaten Arbery without just cause, resulting in his death.
The charges against the three men include:
- Malice murder, punishable by death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole–but execution is not being sought by the prosecution here.
- Felony murder, four counts, based on predicate underlying felonies also charged, also punishable by death or life in prison without possibility of parole.
- Aggravated assault, two counts, both predicates for felony murder, punishable itself by up to 20 years.
- False imprisonment, another predicate for felony murder, punishable by up to 10 years.
- Criminal attempt to commit a felony, false imprisonment, another predicate felony, punishable by up to 5 years.
Here’s the actual general bill of indictment against all three men:
Until next time:
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Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
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Comments
The judge may have sandbagged the defense use of a citizen arrest as not timely. They may have to change their trial plan mid stream.
I know you haven’t been watching this case, but any predictions Mr. Branca? From the little I know, guilty for father and son and the video guy walks.
This judge seems like he just denies anything the defense wants, unless its completely unaddressed by the state..
So they said “ Stop or I’ll blow your fucking head off” while they were chasing him. That probably makes it an unreasonable arrest and under Georgia 16-3-20(4) it is not a criminal defense.
I don’t think any reasonable person not related to this case is grieving for a serial trespasser, and burglar.
Was that evidence actually introduced? Or are you just BSing.
A police officer testified Greg told him Greg said that.
Yes, and the cop said in his report that it was his understanding that the threat came at the end of the encounters, as Arbery was running toward the stationary Travis McMichael, not during the vehicle chase.
So an expression of anger, a threat to get compliance, makes the whole process unreasonable? What ARE we allowed to say now, to stop apparent crimes in progress?
You clearly haven’t watched a bunch of police chase videos on youtube. I am always amazed that every single person who runs isn’t eventually lit up from here to next Sunday. People under duress are not calm.
No actual evidence that anyone said “Stop or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
The statement(s) are made by Greg McMichael and recorded on body cam video taken during the interviews after Arbery was murdered. Redneck Daddy was running off at the mouth in the manner that one police officer might relate to another police officer.
If Arbery was running away for the 5 mins beforehand, this is a VERY different case to Rittenhouse.
Arbery wasn’t “running away” because he was fleeing, he was running away because he didn’t want to be caught because he’s a criminal. That is the difference between Rittenhouse and Arbery.
No – the difference is that Arbery is the Rosenbaum equivalent – he was the one who got shot.
He may well have been running away because he was a crim, but I’m really struggling with self-defence for McMichaels et al given Arbery running away.
Arbery wasn’t running away when self defense was exercised. He was pounding on Travis’s head,
Because he was threatened with a shotgun. Perhaps My Arbery thought he was defending himself with his actions.
If you’re a criminal you don’t get to claim victim status. The state has it backwards: It was Arbery who was engaging in criminal acts and all the acts that followed that criminal act are signs he was the aggressor.
Where is the evidence Arbery was involved in a criminal act? Let’s say he did trespass that day… That in no way justifies the response of the father and son. Not even close.
As I understand the case, the question isn’t whether Arbery previously was committing a crime, the key question is whether the defendants gave up their right to self-defense by trying to make a citizen’s arrest.
Right. There’s ‘no evidence’ he was involved in a criminal act. He just went into the same house 5 different times (where items WERE previously stolen) for no particular reason.
@massinsanity, Arbery was in the act of committing burglary as indicated by the fact he appeared on Larry English’s premises multiple times and was caught on camera pillaging through his things. That is a crime, whether or not he took something or wasn’t formerly charged.
“…by the fact he appeared on Larry English’s premises multiple times and was caught on camera pillaging through his things. That is a crime, whether or not he took something or wasn’t formerly charged.”
He may have been on the premises in question but it is not a certainty and even if he had gone through things before there was no directly discernible evidence he had committed a crime that day. They had 0 evidence he had done so and certainly no reason to chase him down in a truck. Call the police.
On the flip side Arbery had every reason to fear for his safety that day. I can’t imagine how upsetting it would be to be chased down by 2 strange men in a big truck let alone when one of them emerges with a gun!
arbery was a criminal fleeing the scene of his crimes.
Enumerate the “crimes”? Was there even as much as a No Trespassing sign posted on that property? Security cameras with unlocked doors? There is an abundance of recorded “visitors” to the protracted construction project, according to Mr. English, the owner and builder.
Trespassing is a crime, no signage needed, and they suspected him of burglary, with good cause.
No signage needed? And, ignorance is NO EXCUSE for the law.
https://youtu.be/YnhI_ECOAK4
The only available video shows arbery doubling back to run about 50 yards to the McMichaels who were stationary at their parked truck.
Yep, it appears that Arbery had multiple chances to get away from the defendants, if that’s what he really wanted to do. He didn’t have to keep running on the road, where the vehicles were. He didn’t have to jump on Bryant’s truck and try to grab the door. He could have just turned and run into somebody’s backyard, where the trucks were not going to be able to follow him, and jumped a fence or whatever. But Arbery wasn’t trying to get away. He was angry, and he was trying to “get” the defendants. That appears to be why he ran up behind the McMichael truck, when it was parked, and tried to jump Travis and take his gun. It was a stupid thing to do, but criminals often do stupid things.
Maybe he was trying to “get” the defendants because these two (or three) strange men were trying to “get” him.
HUNG on all counts
Jury or defendants?
I always think a prosecution instructing the jury in this manner is wildly prejudicial and inappropriate
State is trying to claim that the “low ready” stance constitutues aggravated assault and waives self defense,
I know this won’t be popular but….
Regardless of media slants, I think they are convicted of at least one charge if not multiple.
These guys are just ignorant of the law of self defense and should have read a book. It’s sad that they were former cops and thought this could be a legal “citizen’s arrest”.
I doubt Arbery knew that he was within his legal rights in a sense to charge at the guy with the gun, but in looking at the evidence of their chase down attempt (even if they didn’t corner him), it’s pretty much a textbook provocation because of no attempt to retreat by the guy with the gun.
Arbery is not the saint he is being made out to be of course and he can probably be referred to as Floyd jr. in terms of his aspiring criminal career with a nice drug hobby and mental illness on the side, but this wasn’t even close to the same universe as the KR situation.
I mostly agree with you, but damn hearing these prosecutors makes me want them to lose more than anything else.
Agreed with you on that but I guess they are actually doing their job.
There should be ways to do that without putting politics into a trial but it’s become so ingrained in everything these days thanks to PC culture that it’s impossible to leave out.
How could the guy with the gun retreat? Arbery started charging from a few feet away, he rounded the front of the truck and charged.
I am tired of a system which chews up and destroys lives of productive, law abiding citizens over low life criminals. like Trayvon Martin, Brown, Floyd and Arbery., we are all, including minorities, better off without these people.
The false imprisonment nonsense is ridiculous because the video shows Arbery had a clear free and open egress to the right which he started to take before Arbery circles around the front of the truck and attachs Travis.
agree that he wasn’t imprisoned…but to be clear, he doesn’t have a legal duty to retreat at this point whether he knows it or not.
What does it matter I guess whether the vehicle was parked there already and he was forced to go around, or he was forced to go around because the vehicle arrived?
By the time he realized what was happening Arbery was probably on top of him. Given that, he doesn’t have a legal duty to retreat before he sees what’s happening.
Yep, Arbery could have gotten away from both vehicles, by just turning and running. He chose not to, probably because he was angry. He was pissed that these white bubbas were following him, and he was going to teach them a lesson (much like Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman). So Arbery ran up and tried to tackle Travis McMichael and take his gun. But he miscalculated McMichael’s strength, and ended up dead as a result.
State kinda sorta forgot to mention that Arbery was “running away” from a first degree burglary.
“We find the decisions in cases such as Clark and Angel persuasive, and hold that a “building” under the burglary statute includes a house under construction which is so far completed as to be capable of providing shelter to people, animals, or property, such as the house in this case.” 226 GA App. 9
IANAL, but I tried to follow the case law cited by the judge. Remember, IANAL.
As I read it, the case law came down to an appellate panel ‘deciding’ that one must witness the crime, and that another appellate panel decided that “in his presence” and “within his immediate knowledge” are synonymous.
Even though IANAL. I see an appeal on the horizon.
Nate the Lawyer is giddy over the judges’ ruling, and it points out why voir dire included what potential jurors thought about out-of-town (Atlanta) attorneys. Nate is from New York which aligns much more with Atlanta than the rest of GA.
As the defense pointed out “with his presence” or “within his immediate knowledge” is the misdemeanor standard. Burglary is a felony and probable cause suffices.
The judge pretty much defined the law away, repealing, or vetoing, from the bench, retroactively. A crime can happen in my presence without me directly witnessing it, and “direct knowledge” can come in many different ways, including the words of others (Stop! Thief!) If the intent of the law was to allow citizen’s arrest only for eye witnesses, it should have said so.
State misstates the law of self defense stating the standard is “absolutely necessary”
Judge may have gotten the law wrong.
“Ga. Code Ann. § 17-4-60 provides, in part, that a private citizen may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. It does not distinguish between misdemeanor and felony offenses. The term “within his immediate knowledge” enables a private citizen to use any of his senses to obtain knowledge that an offense is being committed. A private citizen is not required to actually be present when a misdemeanor offense occurs.”
( Merneigh v. State (2000) 242 Ga.App. 735, 735 [531 S.E.2d 152, 154].)
In Williams, a panel of this court upheld a private citizen’s lawful arrest, finding that the misdemeanor offense was clearly committed within the presence and within the immediate knowledge of the private citizen and that the arrest was effected immediately after the offense occurred. 12 Language in the Williams decision cited by Merneigh, which in isolation appears to suggest that a citizen’s arrest in a misdemeanor case may be made only when the offense was committed in his presence, is simply an application of O.C.G.A. § 17-4-60 to the particular [***11] facts in that case. [**157] This language is mere dicta. It was not only unnecessary to the holding in Williams because the private citizen was actually present when the offense occurred, but it directly conflicts with the clear language of the statute and cases decided both before and after Williams
( Merneigh v. State (2000) 242 Ga.App. 735, 739 [531 S.E.2d 152, 156-157].)
Allowing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to stay in the courtroom in full view of the jury wasn’t the best exercise of judicial discretion either,
States very misleading closing makes it sound like that day was the first day ever that Arbery was known to have been at that house or in that neighborhood even though he is on video 4 times and had a prior confrantation with Travis.
Yep, I don’t think that prosecutor is doing herself any favors by trying to pretend that Arbery was just some innocent jogger. The jury knows he’d been seen on the surveillance cameras in the house, late at night, on multiple prior occasions. There is no innocent explanation for Arbery’s presence there. The jury didn’t get to hear about Arbery’s criminal history, but they’re not stupid. They can figure out what he was up to.
Nothing could top the Rittenhouse prosecutor pointing a rifle at the jury, but the state did its best here.
with his finger on the trigger. What a nutjob.
States contention that they need to pre-approve the defense closing presntation is certainly a novel concept.
Yeah I’m not sure how they allowed any of that argument.. None of the prosecutions business what they plan to argue until they actually do.
Haven’t watched more than a few minutes but managed to catch most of that defense close. Thought he made a very compelling and plausible presentation of their version of events. Learned a few things beyond the media reports. No idea if its correct or will prove persuasive.
It’s an interesting presentation for sure but I’m not sure that they have the right to SYG in this case because they initiated this confrontation.
They had the opportunity to retreat multiple times and didn’t. The closing attorney pointing out that he “chose not to kill him there” multiple times is not very effective IMO. If anything, it points out that he wasn’t in much danger then and could have de-escalated at that point.
FWIW I think this is one of the reasons Drejka lost his case too in Florida
Even if they were the initial aggressors, arbery ran away, and they apparently gave up the chase before he doubled back. Charging Bryan was necessary for the state to keep him from testifying for the McMichaels, and to make the narrative of pursuit at the moment of the shooting plausible.
There are going to rightfully be some guilty verdicts in this trial. I said it from the beginning, the citizen’s arrest statutes did NOT apply to the facts of this case. Citizen’s arrest does not authorize vigilantes to pursue witnesses and alleged perpetrators, does not authorize vigilantes to stop and question suspects. The alleged offense must be a felony committed in the physical presence of the “citizen” making the arrest or the felony must be committed in the “Immediate Knowledge” of the “citizen” making the arrest. days and weeks old vague suspicions of a person committing a crime or viewing a days or weeks old videotape of someone committing a crime does NOT create a felony committed in the physical presence of the “citizen” or “immediate knowledge* of a crime in the mind of a citizen. “Immediate” means immediately in time of the actual commission of the alleged offense. None applies here. I’m very surprised the Judge let the Defense even argue citizen’s arrest to the jury. It just doesn’t apply as a matter of law. They may not be guilty of intentional 1st degree murder but they are guilty of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter (sometimes called 2nd Murder).
http://www.austinbusinesslawyer.info/2021/11/ahmed-arbery-murder-trial-defendants.html
https://www.facebook.com/GaryBrittCPAJD/posts/3014568375497435?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZUMaCK0IX_SMk4FEE4DyPZHubub5uLaeCKEDmqf26NhvwCtSwstPI0H4OxOzpVm7izkFXddLFEz_wf3VHM5Nr1XIOJ_6VY50IAZZsiomXJ2Ni07kLr5_udPQ_fUj0ddu1s&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
But they suspected arbery of committing a crime that very day, seconds before he fled. Suspicion of his previous crimes doesn’t invalidate that.
Citizen’s arrest doesn’t authorize “vigilantes” to stop and question suspects? Do you know what “arrest” means? Were the McMiichaels prohibited from detaining arbery because they were “vigilantes”? Does the law only allow non-vigilantes to make arrests? Is the privilege of citizen’s arrest only available to those who are not very vigilant, or does it exclude those who belong to the category of people who are vigilantes?
While driving I listened to quite a bit of McMichaels on the stand, he was measured, respectful, correct in his recollection (or wanted to make sure his testimony was corroborated by his police statement despite being under duress as he just killed a guy). He is not vigilante. But what he may be guilty of is filling in when the local police would do nothing…Aubrey was a repeat burglar in the neighborhood, had multiple chances to “escape” but circled back. Criminals who do not listen to police or those protecting an area, get consequences. Sorry, that’s the result.
We heard in Rittenhouse all about him carry a weapon, but what about the protesters who has them, some felons disallowed by law to carry one? Crickets.
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,..”
Yeah, there’s a trend now that the Arbery defendants are somehow worse than Rittenhouse who was so likable. Rittenhouse was acquitted because of the facts and it still took the jury over 3 days to dare to make the obvious decisions. This isn’t a close case either.
They don’t have to split 50-50. In each case the evidence is far short of conviction.
Agreed, it isn’t {close}. and this one is very different than KR’s. From McMichaels I heard clear recollection and defined timelines. Says something. Since I wasn’t there that night (or the other nights when Aubrey supposedly burglar-ed houses in the same neighborhood) so I have no judgement beyond what I hear…easy to look from the cheap seats and make up our minds. However, the facts in the case, assuming they are fully and fairly presented and received, will – hopefully – mete out a proper verdict.
“Criminals who do not listen to police or those protecting an area, get consequences.”
Are you serious?
I walk a lot and occasionally run a bit. Am I supposed to “listen to” any stranger who pulls up along side me and accuses me of a crime? With no evidence in the moment?
I don’t want to live in your society.
Amen.
You missed my point entirely, granted it was not stated very clear (was eating lunch). And yes, I am serious. To wit:
Over the past few years good people have gotten seriously frustrated with the criminal element getting away with their crimes. Many have been pushed to fill the role of the police – who, as we’ve seen, have been commanded to stand down while chaos reigns in the streets, destroying peoples livelihoods or whole downtown areas. What would be your recourse, stand there and let it happen?
When these citizens step up to defend their business or property they are operating as any rational person would, and are lawfully operating in that capacity when authorities are derelict in their duty.
We pay taxes to law enforcement agencies to protect us, it is their job. And for the past how many years now we have seen many departments standing by watching, worse, we have DA’s letting the criminal element walk. (This criminal lunatic who drove into the Christmas parade had a 50 page rap sheet and was just let out on cheap bail…48 hours earlier!)
Allowing the criminals free reign is a prescription for anarchy…as we have seen. Citizens have a right to defend themselves and their property. If the criminal element decides to ignore the law, operating open-loop, then they get what they deserve. Someone comes to my semi-remote property with nefarious intent, the sheriff is an hour away and I’m not waiting around, cowering while he does what he wants. I will employ the OODA loop to ruin his plan.
Lastly, Christian’s are afforded self defense…it is “Thou shall not “murder”, it isn’t “kill” as too many believe.
Geez..autocorrect twice…*Arbery*
Strange that lefties are against what the McMichaels did. I mean they’re the ones saying we should abolish the police because ‘We Keep us Safe.’
It’s almost as though their whole political philosophy is nothing but an incoherent expression of a reflexive opposition to all forms of authority.
Long dirty toenails = not a jogger. You ever try running with long toenails? HURTS.
An inconvenient little factoid for the prosecution. The sort of thing the jury should keep in mind.
Anyone not making that connection has never ran in their life.
The “he was an innocent jogger” argument is just insulting to the jury’s intelligence. This guy was sneaking into a private residence, late at night, multiple times. The neighbors testified that the house was “pitch black” at night. Arbery wasn’t jogging in the house, he wasn’t going in to inspect the quality of the construction, he wasn’t going in to look at the wiring, or any of the other ludicrous excuses that have been offered up to explain his illegal presence in somebody else’s residence. Arbery was a thief, and he was in that house looking for things to steal. The neighbors knew it, the prosecutors know it, and the jury has probably figured it out as well.
The state explicitly gave up the “jogger” narrative. It served its purpose in prejudicing nearly the entire world against the defendants.
The prosecutor put a witness on the stand to testify that Arbery was a regular jogger. And in her closing, the prosecutor argued that Arbery was killed “because he was a black man running down the street.” She may not have explicitly referred to him a jogger in her closing, but she’s still trying to pretend he was innocent of any wrongdoing, and was targeted because of his race, which is just complete and utter nonsense. It was Arbery’s criminal conduct, not his skin color, that caused the neighbors to notice and be suspicious of him — and not just his trespassing in the English house that Sunday afternoon, but the multiple prior occasions when he had been illegally in the house in the middle of the night, as shown on the surveillance cameras.
The pro-conviction propaganda is strategic now. Just got an “editorial” saying Arbery was going for his “regular jog” in the neighborhood. There is no hint of evidence that this is the case — unless he was regularly jogging to and from acts of burglary there, of which there is evidence. Also prior conviction for burglary elsewhere.
SYSTEMIC PROBLEM
I found the system problem that is afflicting society.
> It is system lies from media who want to promote racial division and animosity to sell more clicks, papers and views.
Curious that a guy who “regularly” jogged in the neighborhood was never seen jogging by any of the neighbors, and was never captured jogging on any of the neighbors’ Ring or other surveillance cameras. Must have been doing his regular jogging in his invisibility suit, just like he must have been using his night vision goggles to inspect the wiring in the pitch black house he kept visiting in the middle of the night. Who do they think they’re kidding with this garbage?
So he definitely deserved to die.
Why wasn’t the house secured?
There is a house about a mile from me that has been under construction for at least 8 months. One-off builder. It has been framed with the windows in for months but no front door. It just invites mischief. I have little sympathy for the builder if some stuff disappears. It would cost a few hundred bucks to secure the property.
And if some stuff did disappear there is 0 chance me and my boys would be out riding around to get the possible intruder.
Have some common sense people. What that father and son did is an abomination. They need to do time.
To give some perspective I 100% support the Rittenhouse verdict, hope he sues all the media and pols into oblivion and ends up richer than Sandman but this case makes me sick.
I never suggested Arbery “deserved to die” for trespassing, or even for burglary or theft. And he didn’t die for those reasons. He died because he jumped a man holding a rifle and tried to pull it off him. That was incredibly stupid.
A shotgun is NOT a rifle. Stupid? How about Arbery was hunted and pursued like a rabid dog, cornered, and killed for facing his accusers, instead?
Redneck Daddy, Daddy’s Little Dummy and Bubba are chasing a black man in a white neighborhood, Redneck Daddy has already told him he’s gonna blow his fucking head off, if he doesn’t stop and surrender himself to them, and now Daddy’s Little Dummy is standing in the street with a 12 gauge shotgun.
Jesus H. Christ! Just look at them? Would you stop for them? Stereotypes are what they are and they exist for a reason.
The “citizen’s arrest” screen is pure trash and the McMichael Klan would not have invoked it, themselves, were it not for the DA in the next county over, a “good ol’boy” in every sense of the pejorative inflection, had he not instructed the PoPo to stand down.
Try to recall that Greg had been relieved of all law enforcement capabilities by his former supervisor, the District Attorney, for non-compliance with routine, recurrent, professional training. Get McMichael had specifically had his power of arrest REVOKED by his own employer, the District Attorney for Glynn County Georgia.
Arbery was what he was, his day was coming, and the McMichael’s likely motivation for engaging with him is their belief that Arbery had stolen Travis McMichael’s unsecured firearm from his unlocked pickup truck, on New Year’s Day.
Ahmaud Arbery was murdered for… feel free to fill in any of a lot of reasons that seem to have some support.
the McMichaels had multiple oppurtunities to shoot Ahmaud but they didn’t
he was shot when he attacked the shooter And if you watch the vid, Ahmaud gamed out his attack, running to the right of the truck and then darting and attacking McMichael
the attack is when the murder clock began
what do you think legally armed citizens should do, let criminals take their weapons away from them in a fight ? McMichael shoulda known that Ahmaud wouldn’t shoot him if Ahmaud got control of the weapon ?
and yes, Ahmaud may have not commited a felony at that time, he did have a rap sheet and therefore, a criminal
Did Roddy Bryan’s defense counsel get a dig in at Tony Fauci? LOL!
I watched as much of the defense closing as I was able, and it seemed slow, labored, and plodding. I still don’t know if the first shot happened before or after arbery grabbed the gun. It’s okay to present the events as unclear, if they were, but the narrative itself shouldn’t be confusing.
Background and set-up should be presented as needed, but he spent too much time on them at the expense of the heart of the matter. The path from the pledge, through the turn, to the prestige was stumbling.
I don’t think anybody knows whether or not Arbery got his hands on the gun before the first shot or whether or not the first shot hit him. Based on the video it is reasonable to believe that Arbery caught Travis by suprise while had the shotgun pointed at a ninety degree angle to their bodys and that the first shot was an accidental discharge when Arbery took partial possession of the gun. The key issue in this case and always has been did Travis or Greg have “reasonable and probable grounds of suspision” that Arbery had committed a felony. If so Travis’s used of force was reasonable and necessary to detain Arbery in the circumstances which were Arbery resisted arrest with unlawful force and Travis was in reasonable fear for his life and the life of his facther. Don’t even need self defense as a justificaton, it is reasonable to use deadly force to make an arrest when the suspect is resisting with deadly force.
Travis said he was punched before the first shot.. I think he said he didn’t know if arbery grabbed the gun before that shot. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch all the testimony uninterrupted.
I need a pulse check on juror 12
So Bryan is wrong to help in assisting with stopping someone who may or may not have committed a crime with little to no information, but Grosskreuz and Huber were heroes for doing the same thing?
They wouldn’t be leftists without their double standards. But it’s really sad that this Bryan guy has been (over)charged with multiple felonies, including felony murder, for doing nothing more than trying to keep an eye on a criminal who’d been repeatedly breaking into his neighbor’s house, and get him on video for the cops. Bryan probably had to spend his life savings on legal fees for this trial, and he may have to go to prison for years, all because he tried to do a good deed and help out a neighbor and the cops. It’s an outrage.
I think he’s going to be Ok in respect of the criminal charges but can just imagine the financial distress he’s been under as a result of incarceration and wonder if he will even have a place to go home.
Prosecutor: Arbery was not required to talk to people chasing him. Kenosha prosecutor: Rittenhouse should have stopped and told people what had happened. Oh, and leave his gun.
What they believe a person being chased should do is completely dependent on who is being chased. One is a victim. One is an “active shooter”.
The legal problem for the defense is that they never proved legally that Arbery had committed a crime; the defendants have simply alleged that he committed a crime, but they are biased in their own favor, and the jury may not believe their allegation.
If the jury doesn’t believe that Arbery was committing a crime, then they are guilty of false arrest, and have no claim for self defense. That’s the jeopardy they are in.
My guess is still a hung jury, though.
Both the Rittenhouse and Arbery cases reveal a huge gulf in the country: not of left and right, but between those who believe that a citizen has a right, or even an obligation, to directly oppose criminal action to protect their communities with firearms, and those to whom the entire idea of anyone, in any circumstances, wielding a GUN to oppose a criminal who is not an official of the State is an unthinkable act of barbarism.
Kyle R was clearly, obviously engaged in lawful self defense. I don’t have as good a handle on the specifics of the Arbery case; but the opposing narratives are separated by the same gulf in sensibility . On the one hand you have those open-minded to the idea that an armed citizen may actually be serving the community by “inserting themselves” into a situation (and that this can even be admirable) and those (mostly urban, who have never seen or handled a gun except perhaps as a victim of crime, or by the police) who simply cannot process that a “responsible person” would actually engage a wrongdoer with a firearm.
The fact that these local stories, which should be resolved in the context of the very different cultures of the country in which they arise are now all national news only adds fuel to the cultural fire. It is simply impossible to have a national “jury of peers” when it comes to the lawful use of self defense with firearms. Not only or even primarily due to differences of law, but of wholly irreconcilable perspectives on guns and the role of the armed citizen