Well this is interesting....

Here I thought this was a slam dunk... until reading about the case from the trial, rather than what the media reported. How do so often get things so wrong that are so avoidable?

Arbery Case Trial: Based On Closing Arguments, Not Guilty Verdicts A Real Possibility Andrew Branca

Today was the first of two days of closing arguments in the Ahmaud Arbery case trial, in which defendants Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael, and Roddy Bryan are each facing a count of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, and then the four predicate felony counts (two for aggravated assault and two for false imprisonment).

So as not to bury the lede, the take-home message is that if I were being asked to render a verdict today, after listening to the State’s closing and all of the defense closing (but not yet the State’s rebuttal), and having not seen any of the actual trial, I’d be obliged to acquit all three defendants of all charges.

The State’s closing argument delivered by ADA Linda Dunikoski kicked things off—and it can only be described as really not very good at all—perhaps even qualifying as horrible. Mostly the defect was in tone and delivery, although it must be said that the presentation of facts was not very compelling, and she felt obliged to make various rather gross misstatements of law.

Delivery was in a mode of exasperation, with lots of kind of stomping around, hand waving, shaking of her head, as if she can’t really believe she has to actually explain all this stuff—isn’t it just obvious these defendants are guilty of all the things?

The tone involved a great deal of snark, snide remarks, and sarcasm—and while snark, snide remarks, and sarcasm may get a chuckle from your own team and the people already on your side, they do nothing whatever to persuade people not on your side to come on over. Indeed, for people not already on your side it is off-putting, and a net negative.

The defense began with the closing argument for Travis McMichael, made by Attorney Jason Sheffield; followed by the closing argument for Greg McMichael, made by Attorney Laura Hogue; and finally, the closing argument for William “Roddy” Bryan, made by Attorney Kevin Gough.

I found the closing arguments by all three defense attorneys to be vastly superior to that of ADA Dunikoski. Each built their closing around a theme or story arc that facilitated the ability to address the nine separate counts in a coherent way. The attorneys also accurately presented the relevant law (mostly), unlike the many misrepresentations of law made by the State.

Now Branca is a defense attorney who sees most people as not guilty and he does caution that he believes that the defense might be holding back a large portion of their defense arguments on "rebuttal".  That being said, I was under the impression that this was a slam dunk no brainer for the prosecution.

That being said, I have not watched anything regarding or even read about the trial. All I have are media accounts, and if all I had were media accounts in the Rittenhouse trial, I might have thought he was dead to rights as well.

But here is what I find interesting... because I have always been under the impression that Arbery was just an innocent jogger who was shot because he was black. Turns out Arbery was suspected of multiple crimes in the area and was not in fact "jogging" when shot. In fact there is no evidence that Arbery ever jogged anywhere, much less in this neighborhood. According to testimony he was simply lurking in the dark at a construction site?

What had been a charming little community was being ravaged by property crimes and burglaries. Homeowners began installing security cameras all over their homes for the first time. Parents would not allow their children to play outside after dinner, and then not at all. People began keeping guns accessible and talking with each other in person and in social media about the growing crime problem. They also began to make a lot of calls to 911, but the police response was ineffectual, as the suspicious persons were usually gone by the time the police arrived.

Apparently, one of the criminal predators committing serial property crimes in this neighborhood was one Ahmaud Arbery. He’d been caught repeatedly on surveillance camera, generally in the dark of night, inside a local home under construction from which thousands of dollars of property had been stolen over time—generally in the dark of night. On at least one occasion he’d been frightened into flight by neighbors seeing him lurking in shadows among houses, and having headlights put on him as the neighbors called 911.

Travis McMichael himself had a pistol stolen from his car, and a short time before the Feb. 23 death of Arbery had himself spotted Arbery lurking by the home under construction in the dark, called 911, put his headlights on Arbery, and observed Arbery realizing he’d been spotted and reaching for his waistband as if for a weapon. The 911 recording made contemporaneously with these events was played in court, and you can clearly hear the stress in Travis’ voice.

Now it still seems like this might not go the defense's way and it still probably shouldn't. There is a lot of political and social pressure here to get convictions and I am sure the jury is well aware of it. They also do not have actual evidence (only suspicion) that Arbery was responsible for any of the multiple burglaries in the area. That seems like a hard question in terms of justification for a citizen's arrest. While Branca argues that the reaction and running would have given police cause to pursue, Andrew McCarthy is not so sure. He still believes that the defendants overreacted (not as a matter of race or racism) but as a matter of being unjustified under the law.

At a minimum, it appears that Travis McMichael, who shot Arbery multiple times, should be convicted of murder, in addition to the other charges. Furthermore, the evidence would support holding both Greg McMichael and Roddie Bryan accountable for the murder since they were willing participants in the chase, even if they did not pull the trigger. Consequently, if the state convicted all defendants on all charges, that would be a just result — it is the verdict I would vote for. Yet I cannot say it would be irrational for the jury to acquit Bryan and the elder McMichael of murder, while convicting them of the assault and false-imprisonment charges. That, too, would be a just verdict.

Ultimately this case seems a hell of a lot different when you actually know the facts, not just what the media reported. A neighborhood in criminal alarms status, forced to do a neighborhood watch (because police are unresponsive). Seeing a well known suspect  (seen multiple times on surveillance cameras) lurking around at some new construction, running away as soon as he is seen under the headlights? Knowing the police are not going to help. 

Is the idea of an attempted citizen's arrest as crazy as the media makes it sound like? If that was my neighborhood, would I have pursued this guy? Would any of you pursued him under these same circumstance? Are people not allowed to feel safe in their own neighborhoods? Obviously, the man should not be dead, but this is not as simple as it was made out to be and it is quite possible that a bad prosecution in this case could lead to acquittals.