Arbery case

[pp4me]

{ split off the Kyle Rittenhouse thread \DS }

I see that the Ahmaud Arbery trial ended up with a conviction on all counts for all three men who will probably be spending the rest of their lives in prison or at least the better part of it.

I have not follwed this case closely so I'm not going to second guess the jury because I didn't see any of the evidence as opposed to the Rittenhouse trial where there was lots of video footage. Based on my limited knowledge of what happened it didn't sound like first degree murder to me so if that's what they were convicted of that doesn't seem right.

What concerns me however, is the same thing that happened in the Chauvin/George Floyd trial. BLM openly said that there would be violence if there was a non-guilty verdict in both cases. So are we at the point where the inflamed passions of a lynch mob are able to tip the scales of justice?

I suspect we are.

[moda0306]

I see that the Ahmaud Arbery trial ended up with a conviction on all counts for all three men who will probably be spending the rest of their lives in prison or at least the better part of it.

I have not follwed this case closely so I'm not going to second guess the jury because I didn't see any of the evidence as opposed to the Rittenhouse trial where there was lots of video footage. Based on my limited knowledge of what happened it didn't sound like first degree murder to me so if that's what they were convicted of that doesn't seem right.

What concerns me however, is the same thing that happened in the Chauvin/George Floyd trial. BLM openly said that there would be violence if there was a non-guilty verdict in both cases. So are we at the point where the inflamed passions of a lynch mob are able to tip the scales of justice?

I suspect we are.

If any individuals threatened to damage property or hurt people if there was a certain verdict, they should be arrested and tried accordingly. Organizations can't really make threats (if we're considering BLM an actual "organization" in this context). Individual people can. They should be punished accordingly.

And if you've watched any of this trial you'll see that the prosecution laid the legal case out for murder absolutely brilliantly. I was sort of on the fence based on my initial impression of the factual and legal basis of the charges until I saw some of the coverage of the trial.

[glennds]

I see that the Ahmaud Arbery trial ended up with a conviction on all counts for all three men who will probably be spending the rest of their lives in prison or at least the better part of it.

I have not follwed this case closely so I'm not going to second guess the jury because I didn't see any of the evidence as opposed to the Rittenhouse trial where there was lots of video footage. Based on my limited knowledge of what happened it didn't sound like first degree murder to me so if that's what they were convicted of that doesn't seem right.

What concerns me however, is the same thing that happened in the Chauvin/George Floyd trial. BLM openly said that there would be violence if there was a non-guilty verdict in both cases. So are we at the point where the inflamed passions of a lynch mob are able to tip the scales of justice?

I suspect we are.

If any individuals threatened to damage property or hurt people if there was a certain verdict, they should be arrested and tried accordingly. Organizations can't really make threats (if we're considering BLM an actual "organization" in this context). Individual people can. They should be punished accordingly.

And if you've watched any of this trial you'll see that the prosecution laid the legal case out for murder absolutely brilliantly. I was sort of on the fence based on my initial impression of the factual and legal basis of the charges until I saw some of the coverage of the trial.

I caught only some of the Arbery case trial coverage. But it was enough to reach the same conclusion as you, that the prosecution laid the case out very well. And if that weren't enough, the admissions that came out of Travis McMichael's own mouth on the stand were damning to say the least. I listened to him hammer nail after nail into his own coffin. The jury's job is to apply the law to the facts. I don't really see how they could have reached any other verdict.
The most astonishing thing to me was that the neighbor Roddy Bryan's attorney agreed to keep him in the same trial with the McMichaels. If he had split him off, I think there were very good odds of him coming out better than he did being tried with the McMichaels'.

[moda0306]

[quote=moda0306 post_id=235868 time=<a href="tel:1638418791">1638418791</a> user_id=211]
[quote=pp4me post_id=235607 time=<a href="tel:1637956897">1637956897</a> user_id=3568]
I see that the Ahmaud Arbery trial ended up with a conviction on all counts for all three men who will probably be spending the rest of their lives in prison or at least the better part of it.

I have not follwed this case closely so I'm not going to second guess the jury because I didn't see any of the evidence as opposed to the Rittenhouse trial where there was lots of video footage. Based on my limited knowledge of what happened it didn't sound like first degree murder to me so if that's what they were convicted of that doesn't seem right.

What concerns me however, is the same thing that happened in the Chauvin/George Floyd trial. BLM openly said that there would be violence if there was a non-guilty verdict in both cases. So are we at the point where the inflamed passions of a lynch mob are able to tip the scales of justice?

I suspect we are.

If any individuals threatened to damage property or hurt people if there was a certain verdict, they should be arrested and tried accordingly. Organizations can't really make threats (if we're considering BLM an actual "organization" in this context). Individual people can. They should be punished accordingly.

And if you've watched any of this trial you'll see that the prosecution laid the legal case out for murder absolutely brilliantly. I was sort of on the fence based on my initial impression of the factual and legal basis of the charges until I saw some of the coverage of the trial.
[/quote]

I caught only some of the Arbery case trial coverage. But it was enough to reach the same conclusion as you, that the prosecution laid the case out very well. And if that weren't enough, the admissions that came out of Travis McMichael's own mouth on the stand were damning to say the least. I listened to him hammer nail after nail into his own coffin. The jury's job is to apply the law to the facts. I don't really see how they could have reached any other verdict.
The most astonishing thing to me was that the neighbor Roddy Bryan's attorney agreed to keep him in the same trial with the McMichaels. If he had split him off, I think there were very good odds of him coming out better than he did being tried with the McMichaels'.
[/quote]

What’s also insane is seeing how gingerly the McMichaels and Roddy were handled by the police, directly, and initial prosecutors, indirectly. It’s amazing how much benefit of the doubt they gave the guys when these guys were basically admitting to illegally detaining and therefore subsequently murdering Arbery.

Just shows you how ignorant police are of the law and/or how willing they are to selectively enforce it when the circumstances just feel white… eerrr… right.

[glennds]

What’s also insane is seeing how gingerly the McMichaels and Roddy were handled by the police, directly, and initial prosecutors, indirectly. It’s amazing how much benefit of the doubt they gave the guys when these guys were basically admitting to illegally detaining and therefore subsequently murdering Arbery.

Just shows you how ignorant police are of the law and/or how willing they are to selectively enforce it when the circumstances just feel white… eerrr… right.

Absolutely. This twist makes the case especially interesting. The original DA has now been indicted by a grand jury for violating oath of office and obstruction. From what I can tell, she knew Greg McMichael personally from his years as a police officer. It took five months to indict these three, and even then only after the phone video that one of them took was leaked.
Whether racism played a part in the DA's dereliction or not I can't say. It could be a simple case of good ole boyism. Either way, it's crazy that a DA would enforce the law selectively in a murder situation, and show favoritism to friends thus depriving Arbery's family of legal justice. A lawyer herself, how could she not recognize how far out on a limb she was?

On a positive note, the State AG that brought the charges against the DA is a Republican, so hopefully we can rule out a Democrat or BLM persecution narrative. I watched a little bit of the dialogue on r/Conservative in Reddit, and with the exception of a few hard cases, the majority of self described conservatives found the behavior of the three aggressors reprehensible.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it's a good thing when the judicial system holds law enforcement accountable. That's the way it was designed to work.

[pp4me]

If there is one thing I think I could confidently convict those three men of without even hearing much of the evidence is that they were complete and total dumbasses unless they were so far removed from the news and current affairs they were totally clueless.

I remember in the movie Time to Kill that a black man killed some white men for raping his daughter and when the defense lawyer asked for change of venue the judge said he agreed that he couldn't get a fair trial in the local jurisdiction. But he denied the request because there also was no place in Mississippi that he could get a fair trial.

I think that's getting to be true in the whole U.S.A. today if you get accused of anything that can even be remotely linked to racism and/or white supremacy. Unless maybe we put newly arrived illegal immigrants on the jury. Then again, it seems like attention to racism and and white supremacy in America has become a world wide thing so maybe not.

So what do you do when there is a suspicious black man running through your neighborhood? Let's get our gun boys and go make a citizens arrest.

How could that possibly turn out bad?

[moda0306]

If there is one thing I think I could confidently convict those three men of without even hearing much of the evidence is that they were complete and total dumbasses unless they were so far removed from the news and current affairs they were totally clueless.

I remember in the movie Time to Kill that a black man killed some white men for raping his daughter and when the defense lawyer asked for change of venue the judge said he agreed that he couldn't get a fair trial in the local jurisdiction. But he denied the request because there also was no place in Mississippi that he could get a fair trial.

I think that's getting to be true in the whole U.S.A. today if you get accused of anything that can even be remotely linked to racism and/or white supremacy. Unless maybe we put newly arrived illegal immigrants on the jury. Then again, it seems like attention to racism and and white supremacy in America has become a world wide thing so maybe not.

So what do you do when there is a suspicious black man running through your neighborhood? Let's get our gun boys and go make a citizens arrest.

How could that possibly turn out bad?

What turned out bad for these men had absolutely nothing to do with race-baiting nonsense unless you're paying attention to the side commentary on the media. The legal arguments towards their guilt are actually remarkably clear if you've paid attention to the case, and very, very little attention is paid to race.

If anything, the fact that these guys shot a black dude in a white neighborhood is what got them off so incredibly easily initially with only happenstance and over-confidence coming back to change things. If you want to argue against that, you're free to try, but even if you're correct, these men certainly weren't arrested, charged, and convicted due to anything related to race, and everything related to proper application of the law.

Do libs often over-play the race card? Absolutely. Is some of the media coverage around this case one of those times? Sure... welcome to click-bait, emotion-driven media. Are federal hate-crime charges a bit of a joke? Probably.

But is the trial and conviction of these men some sort of race-related legal machination? No. They murdered a guy when their crime and escalation went sideways. For "whatever reason" a bunch of cops listened to these guys basically confess to murder and let them go. Luckily, one Bubba was dumb enough to share the video online, and justice was done.

[pp4me]

What turned out bad for these men had absolutely nothing to do with race-baiting nonsense unless you're paying attention to the side commentary on the media. The legal arguments towards their guilt are actually remarkably clear if you've paid attention to the case, and very, very little attention is paid to race.

I disagree. I was listening to Scott Adams the other day when talking about Rittenhouse and he said that the idea of an impartial jury arriving at an unbiased decison based solely on the facts is a pipe-dream and it almost never happens even though the jury might think so. I tend to agree and the best evidence to be found of that in modern times is probably the O.J. Simpson trial.

And I would also suggest that you avoid using the words "absolutely" and "remarkably clear" when discussing subjects like this because it reveals your own biases and makes people not want to listen to you.

[glennds]

It's true that all people have biases, and those biases are going to affect the application of facts to the law. However would you accept that biases are at least somewhat mitigated in that the jury consists of twelve jurors, and their decision must be unanimous?
To find twelve people with the same biases is going to be much more difficult than one.
Is it possible; sure. But the jury size and unanimity requirement makes it less likely.

What makes the Arbery case interesting to me is not the main focal point. That part's simple. Three guys armed themselves and decided to chase down and detain an unarmed man who had committed no crime. It resulted in the death of the unarmed guy who never provoked anyone. In fact he tried to run away and they wouldn't let him, as McMichael admitted.
If three guys with guns started chasing me and yelling at me to stop because they want to talk to me, hell yes, I'd run too. I doesn't take a liberal race bias to see the crime here.

But what is far more interesting, to me at least, is (1) the obstruction issue where local law enforcement tried to help the criminals and sweep the crime under the carpet, and (2) the whole notion of citizen's arrests.

The now-repealed law in Georgia dated back to 1863. The concept of citizen's arrests goes back to colonial times and IMO just doesn't bear any relevance in a modern society with the ability to call 911 and access professional authorities. A friend of mine has a daughter that went through Academy and ultimately joined the Phoenix Police Dept. I was astonished at the sheer extent of the training she underwent. I just can't imagine any rational person thinking an average joe arming themselves and trying to function as an amateur law enforcer is a good idea.

[moda0306]

What turned out bad for these men had absolutely nothing to do with race-baiting nonsense unless you're paying attention to the side commentary on the media. The legal arguments towards their guilt are actually remarkably clear if you've paid attention to the case, and very, very little attention is paid to race.

I disagree. I was listening to Scott Adams the other day when talking about Rittenhouse and he said that the idea of an impartial jury arriving at an unbiased decison based solely on the facts is a pipe-dream and it almost never happens even though the jury might think so. I tend to agree and the best evidence to be found of that in modern times is probably the O.J. Simpson trial.

And I would also suggest that you avoid using the words "absolutely" and "remarkably clear" when discussing subjects like this because it reveals your own biases and makes people not want to listen to you.

Semantics of certainty are probably worth avoiding. Touche.

But when was there ever anything approaching an impartial jury? Regardless, I didn't mention the jury. I mentioned the prosecution's arguments. I'd recommend diving into them because they're something to behold.

But either way... if there were biases present in this whole affair, it seems very likely to me that they worked for, not against, the murderers in this case. If you care to counter that specific fact-set I'd be interested to see an argument. What Scott Adams has to say about the Rittenhouse case is mostly irrelevant to the facts of this one, if we're sticking more to the law and less to culture war media nonsense.

[pp4me]

Semantics of certainty are probably worth avoiding. Touche.

Well, I did call those men "complete idiots" so I guess we're both guilty of that. I'm sticking with my certainty on that however.

For the record, I didn't start this thread even thought it appears on the home screen that I was the OP. I think I posted something about the trial in the Rittenhouse thread and it got split off.

Truth is, I've gotten burned out following these kinds of trials after Zimmerman, George Floyd, and then Rittenhouse. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just let the justice system handle these matters without having them always blown up by the media, politicans, et al, into the next skirmish in the ongoing culture/race war in America? Too much to ask, I guess.

I'll take your word for it that the prosecutors did a good job presenting the evidence. Maybe they could have even convicted Rittenhouse. From what I saw of the Rittenhouse trial those prosecutors were really incompetent. Even I know as a layman that a lawyer is never supposed to ask questions they don't already know the answers to. And what I saw of the closing arguments which I actually saw live as part of the news I was watching, OMG did that prosecutor who spoke last not say the stupidest thing ever said in a courtroom - that we all have to take a beating sometimes? The jury apparently didn't buy that argument.

What Scott Adams was saying about the Rittenhouse trial had nothing to do with his own opinion about his guilt or innocence. His comments came out when the jury was taking a lot more time deliberating than people expected even though there was pretty clear video proof of self-defense. He thought there must be at least one juror holding and thus the idea that 12 jurors can look a the same evidence and all come to the same logical and reasonable conclusions without bias was a myth. So if you get charged with a crime and it goes to trial anything can happen. And I'm thinking that's exactly what the prosecutors were thinking in the Rittenhouse case.

[glennds]

What Scott Adams was saying about the Rittenhouse trial had nothing to do with his own opinion about his guilt or innocence. His comments came out when the jury was taking a lot more time deliberating than people expected even though there was pretty clear video proof of self-defense.

I don't know who Scott Adams is, but it's possible the jury was not deliberating whether or not Rittenhouse was acting in self defense, but were taking time deliberating whether he used excessive force in doing so. Proportional use of force is one of the more complicated elements of legal self defense. Neither of us will probably ever know what was going on in the jury's deliberations, but I'm just throwing out a possibility.

Heh, we're in a split off thread intended to separate the Arbery case discussion and here we are discussing Rittenhouse again. Let's give the moderators a break.

[pp4me]

What Scott Adams was saying about the Rittenhouse trial had nothing to do with his own opinion about his guilt or innocence. His comments came out when the jury was taking a lot more time deliberating than people expected even though there was pretty clear video proof of self-defense.

I don't know who Scott Adams is, but it's possible the jury was not deliberating whether or not Rittenhouse was acting in self defense, but were taking time deliberating whether he used excessive force in doing so. Proportional use of force is one of the more complicated elements of legal self defense. Neither of us will probably ever know what was going on in the jury's deliberations, but I'm just throwing out a possibility.

Heh, we're in a split off thread intended to separate the Arbery case discussion and here we are discussing Rittenhouse again. Let's give the moderators a break.

You probably know who Scott Adams is if you've ever read or heard of the cartoon strip Dilbert. He got a following for his podcasts online when he rightly predicted that Trump was going to win. He also has a master's degree in economics and is a trained hypnotist who understands what he calls "persuasion techniques". Politically he claims to be left of Bernie Sanders but his dissection of fake news and how to spot it is really good stuff. And funny too.

Unfortunately, his daily podcasts are an hour long, too long to keep my attention but I do check him out when it looks like it's going to be interesting.

[glennds]

The judge in the Arbery case handed down life sentences to the three defendants today. The McMichaels father/son were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and the third defendant William "Roddie" Bryan gets the possibility of parole after 30 years.

It's not over for the three either. They still face a separate trial for Federal hate crime and other Federal charges.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/us/m ... lling.html

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I think it will be especially interesting to see how the charges against the first DA that attempted to sweep the case under the rug, will play out.