All 3 men guilty of murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery

(2) Live updates: All 3 men guilty of murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery (cnn.com)

• Travis McMichael: The jury found Travis McMichael guilty of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony. The younger McMichael now faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole on each of the murder charges, 20 years on each of the aggravated assault charges, 10 years on the false imprisonment charge and five years on the criminal attempt to commit a felony charge. The judge will decide whether his sentences will be served consecutively or concurrently.
• Gregory McMichael: Travis's father, Gregory McMichael, was found guilty of four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony. He was acquitted only on a malice murder charge. He now faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole on each of the four felony murder charges, 20 years on each of the aggravated assault charges, 10 years on the false imprisonment charge and five years on the criminal attempt to commit a felony charge.
• William “Roddie” Bryan Jr.: Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., was found guilty of three counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony. He was acquitted of malice murder, one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. He now faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole on each of the murder charges, 20 years on the aggravated assault charge, 10 years on the false imprisonment charge and 5 years on the criminal attempt to commit a felony charge.

 

Perhaps they should have received some punishment.

Even if they were wrong to chase Arbery, it was not like they had no reason whatsoever to chase him. It was not entirely unjustified, one might say (even if overall unjustified).

Arbery refused to stop and talk to them, and not only did he walk or even jog away, he ran trying to get away from them, which you could not blame them for finding very suspicious. (They had also seen has face on previous video footage from a construction site, which also added some suspicion but was not illegal)

Arbery ran at one of them, unexpectedly from around the corner of the car, looking like he was going to head-butt or tackle him. He has the body of a football linebacker. What was that guy supposed to do at that point?

If this is seen as a murder, it is going to be a drastically excessive amount of punishment if they are punished as if it had been a normal murder.

And why should the other two be charged with murder? How does that make any sense? Only one of them shot him.


Also, in my view, at no point had they really "begun" trying to perform a citizen's arrest at that point. They were chasing him, which might be seen as justified because they were trying to keep an eye on his location until police could arrive. Police probably would have stopped him, maybe asked for identification or quickly talked to him, or maybe would have wanted to get a good look at his face on his body camera.

Using the truck to cut off his path in the middle of the road is where things start entering more of a grey zone, but that still isn't quite trying to perform a citizen's arrest. It could have been to try to slow him down.

They may have ultimately been wanting to perform a citizen's arrest (which they would not have had the legal right to do), but they had not begun it yet. That is an important legal distinction.

 

This jury decision is complete crap.

Even if you think all three of those men deserve some punishment, it is still illogical, and legally illogical.

Most of the public is stupid.

Some people are even saying those men would likely not have been found guilty if the victim was a white guy. But because he was black, there is anger and people are questioning the three's real motives, and this is seen as an unjust outcome deriving from racism, which those men must be found fully guilty for.

 

Oh, need it be mentioned that Gregory McMichael was a former police officer, and if he had still been employed as a police officer, likely everything he did here would be considered legal.

 

And he was obligated to do so because.........

 

Irrelevant.


.......Justice was done. And given that most of the jury were white and it was situated in the south........It is rather remarkable.


A good day for the system.........and something to be thankful for..........this thanksgiving day.

 

You've been told, repeatedly, why their actions were illegal. Your only response has been to ask us to ignore the facts of the case, ignore what they did, ignore what they said, ignore their own account of their actions, and go with the one you made up about them just wanting to follow him until police arrived to ID him. There's a reason they lost. They were guilty.

 

The only reason his former career is relevant is that it goes to motive: it proves he should have known better. In order to arrest someone, you need to have probable cause pointing to THAT SPECIFIC PERSON being guilty of an ARTICUABLE, SPECIFIC CRIME. Cops can not legally just run someone down because "hey, there have been crimes in the neighborhood and I just feel like arresting this guy to check his ID." You've already been called out on this BS before.

 

White men gave him orders. It's the "Yessa massa" defense.

 

They would have gotten away with this easily in the 50s.......


No wonder Republicans claim "it was much better back in the day"........

 

Good verdict.

 

exactly!!! "justice" has a different meaning to them....

 

Obligated to do what?

Maybe you're misunderstanding. I'm not claiming that Arbery was obligated to do anything.

But I hope you're not falling into a logical fallacy that because Arbery was not obligated to do anything, they did not have the right to do anything in response to his actions.

 

The decision is not over.

In my opinion the main part of the decision will have to do with how much punishment they get.

 

Even though they did not have sufficient justifiable cause to arrest him, that still does not automatically make this a murder.

Or at least not a murder in the conventional sense of the word.

First of all, they (arguably) had not really begun arresting him at the time when Arbery ran at one of them (presumably to try to grab the gun).

 

If they did not have cause, then what they were doing was a crime. A felony. He was defending himself against a felony, during the course of which they threatened his life.

Yes, killing someone for engaging in self defense to defend themselves from your felony is murder.

 

That's "legal logic", not logic.

And he wasn't really "defending" himself because his actions were stupid and had virtually no chance of succeeding. He should have known doing that would likely end up with him being shot.

 

It is both. Which is why you can't address either. If someone tries to commit a violent crime against you, you have the right to self defense. The fact that you think that this is a controversial position is just ****ing looney.

 

Someone having the right to self defense does not necessarily automatically mean the other party does not also have a right to self defense in response.

(One example of this would be police raiding a house and the homeowner thinking that he is being burglarized)


(I also take issue with you whether what those three had done up to that point really constituted a "violent crime". It seems like you're just relying on vague words to try to make an argument. But that could easily lead us to make an equivocation fallacy)

 

The law, and basic logic and reasoning, says that you are no longer acting in self defense if you are the instigator. Killing someone for acting in self defense against the crime you are committing against them is not, itself, self defense. If you do not understand this, then you are quite possibly the only living being in existence who doesn't.

 

But it's a vague overly broad law, that should not necessarily be interpreted literally at face value.
I'm pretty sure they did not have in mind specific situations like this one when that law was passed.

That's usually true, but I would say not always true.

For one thing, I would argue whether Arbery's actions, running at the man trying to grab his gun, truly constituted "self defense". Because he had no chance of succeeding, and that course of action was stupid.

 

Justice was served and done the right way. Those three that were convicted got what they deserved and that's the bottom line.

 

There's nothing vague about it. And you've presented no facts that change the face value.

 

No.

Anyway, the decision about how much punishment they should get hasn't come to a conclusion yet.


In my opinion, Arbery was at least partially responsible for his own death, even if he did have the right to do that.

 

It doesn't specify the type of crime specifically enough.
Bank robberies, kidnappings, yes we can all agree on those. No right to self defense for the persons who decide to commit those type of crimes.

Trying to carry that over into all "felonies" is too broad.
Many things classified as "felonies" are nowhere even close to the situations that people normally imagine the word "felony" to mean (like bank robberies, etc).


It seems to me most all the arguments presented on your side in this forum are based on overgeneralizations, just as a side note.