It’s a shame the law isn’t more cut and dry. To your point, it often seems more about the presentation and competence of the litigators — not to mention the jurors....which would scare the hell out of me — than the Law.
In contrast to your earlier posts, though: Don’t you wonder, though, that outside of the obvious that McMichaels had guns and did pursue....was there intent to kill? But only when (it appears) physically attacked that a shot went off? Seems that’s going to be central in this.
There are issues with lawyer competency, juries that have agendas, judges making suspect rulings, etc. However, most of those things are actually in favor of defendants. Even if there is something abnormal in favor of the state, that makes grounds for appeal.
In Georgia even showing that you have a weapon to a person with whom you are in conflict with is aggravated assault. That is pretty cut and dry. Were the McMichaels and Arbery in an excited situation? Yes. Did Travis McMichael show that he had a gun? Yes. Since that is the case, it easily fits the statutory definition of aggravated assault.
In Georgia there are two type of murder, malice murder and felony murder. The definition of felony murder is "A person also commits the offense of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice." Intent does not matter. Only did the person commit a felony, and did the death of another person result from that felony.
Malice murder seems to be more what you are referring to. Which is intentionally taking the life of someone else with "malice aforethought". The statute also says that malice can be implied if there was no provocation. They have not been charged with this.
disclaimer: I personally have no problem with the pursuit, especially in of the video and 911 call. don’t know what statutes say about the guns vis-a-vis “protecting property”.
This seems to be another instance of how you feel vs. what the law is. In order to make a citizen's arrest the person making the arrest has to have a crime occur "in their presence". From previous court rulings about the statute:
- You have to have witnessed a crime in the immediate past. You can't make a citizen's arrest for something you saw sometime in the past, only what you just saw.
- You cannot utilize any more force than what is absolutely necessary to enact a citizen's arrest. (This court ruling was from a case in which a person used a baseball bat to make a citizen's arrest, so a gun would be even more force.
- If you make a citizen's arrest and are mistaken about a crime actually being committed, your detention of the other person is "false imprisonment" which is a crime, and citizen's making such an arrest are not immune to prosecution like police officers are.
You can't make a citizen's arrest just because you "think" somebody did something. You can't detain someone because the "fit the description" of someone who has done something.
The reason people are asking you what crime Arbery committed that day is because for the McMichaels to have authority to make a citizen's arrest under Georgia law, they had to have witnessed a crime at that moment. Greg McMichael stated to the police that hey chased him because he resembled a "suspect from the break - ins". He didn't tell the police that he saw Arbery commit a crime. He also said in the police report that he called for Travis because Travis was inside at the time. Thus Travis wouldn't have even been able to see a crime in progress.
Instead of asking you what crime Arbery committed, I will ask: What legal authority did the McMichaels have to detain Arbery? From the evidence available, it does not appear that they did.
