By Matt Williams
It took jurors around 11 hours of deliberations to arrive at guilty verdicts in the trial of three men accused in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
Shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 24, 2021, before a courtroom that included members of Arbery’s family, all the three defendants – Greg McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan – were found guilty of counts including murder. They each now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was killed on Feb. 23, 2020, after being pursued through the predominantly white suburban neighborhood of Satilla Shores, near Brunswick in Georgia.
For many, the manner of his death raised questions over the role race played in the killing, evoking a U.S. in which gangs of white men killed Black men and boys with impunity. But race played a backseat role in the trial, only being brought up in the prosecutor’s closing argument. Instead, the near all-white jury – 11 of the 12 jurors were white – were invited to focus more on whether the defendants were justified in trying to apprehend Arbery as he jogged down the road.
The Conversation’s authors have explored how race and law intertwine in the following stories related to Arbery’s murder.
1. The use and abuse of citizen’s arrest
In the course of a two-week trial, jurors heard evidence from more than two dozen witnesses. At the heart of the defense was a claim that the three men accused were protected by the state’s citizen’s arrest law.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley made a point of explaining the law in his final instructions before the jury retired to consider its verdict. He told them citizen’s arrests can be made only if a crime has taken place in the presence of the person making the arrest, “or within his immediate knowledge.”
The verdict in the case suggests jurors sided with the prosecution’s view that the citizen’s arrest defense did not hold water.
Following the death of Arbery, Georgia weakened its 150-year-old citizen’s arrest law. But as Seth Stoughton, professor of law at University of South Carolina, explains, many states retain similar legislation. In fact, citizen’s arrest laws have been around for centuries – but they have often been open to abuse. Such laws can be “badly misused by those who believe their higher social status gives them authority over someone they perceive as having lower status.”
“Frequently, this falls along racial lines,” Stoughton adds.
2. Criminalizing Black joggers
Lawyers for the three defendants claimed in the trial that the accused men were within their right to conduct a citizen’s arrest because they believed Arbery had committed a burglary despite there being no evidence to suggest that the 25-year-old had stolen anything.
Sociologist Rashawn Ray focused on the setting and circumstances surrounding the shooting – that the victim was a Black man jogging in a white suburban neighborhood.
In Ray’s study of race and physical exercise, he found that Black men living in white neighborhoods were far less likely to go for a run in the areas surrounding their home than were white men, white women and Black women. The reason? “Black men are often criminalized in public spaces – that means they are perceived as potential threats and predators,” Ray writes.
Black joggers interviewed as part of Ray’s research reported having the police called on them, seeing neighbors cross the street as they approached and shutting screen doors as they passed.
“For Black men, this means that negative perceptions about their propensity to commit crime, emotional stability, aggressiveness and strength can be used as justification for others to enact physical force upon them,” Ray concludes.
3. Cellphone footage: Evidence or exploitation?
During the trial, jurors were shown the graphic footage depicting the last moments of Arbery’s life. For some, it may not have been the first time they were seeing the grainy images.
Such videos have emerged in several recent deaths of Black men at the hands of police officers – or, in Arbery’s case, citizens.
To Allissa Richardson at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, the images that circulate are the modern-day equivalent of the grotesque photographs that accompanied the lynchings of the Jim Crow era.
Just as these images from the past serve a purpose today – to educate America about race relations in the U.S. – so too can the video images shot on bystanders’ cellphones. For example, they can be used as evidence in court.
But Richardson cautions that casual viewing of Black people dying online and on TV can become exploitative.
“Likening the fatal footage of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd to lynching photographs invites us to treat them more thoughtfully. We can respect these images. We can handle them with care. In the quiet, final frames, we can share their last moments with them, if we choose to. We do not let them die alone.”
Matt Williams is The Conversation’s breaking news editor.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
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Dave says
Justice finally wins. Don’t take the law in your own hands that is what we have the men/women in Blue that are trained.
Sad this didn’t happen in Wisconsin but that trial had a Judge that corrupted the whole trial.
Marjorie Greene thinks Kyle Rittenhouse should get the Congressional Metal of Freedom, for committing murder. We all know where her head is at, in the gutter. Someday maybe she will do what is good for our country instead of promoting all the wrong things. But when you see who she hangs out with it explains a lot.
joe says
Just maybe this will cool the fever of all the yahoos who think it’s their right to patrol their neighborhoods with rifles “enforcing the law.”
David Schaefer says
It’s about time…
bob says
Correct jury decisions
Jimbo99 says
That whole article really went for a stretch of generalizations, that are potential for any race or gender. Really ? New construction in the neighborhood here and I’ve seen others drive up to the construction site and load up what is perceived as scrap building materials into their vehicles & drive off. Construction site building materials is a crime that happens quite often. I get the 3 that chased the man down and killed him are guilty of what they did. This happened to be a case where there were 3 white dudes & the victim was black. I think construction site theft goes unreported for the most part. There often isn’t any surveillance camera. That said, I’ve seen my share of it, white, black, Hispanic individuals taking building materials that nobody with any ownership interest implied or expressly gave those folks permission. They driven up in trucks, sedans of all status level. The most recent, a black man in a Mercedes loaded several concrete cinder blocks into the trunk of his Benz & drove off. Do the math on what a concrete block over at home depot prices out at. If you’re a human being and you aren’t a construction worker building the phase of the construction of unaffordable housing, others will perceive you as a theft threat at the very least when you trespass a construction site. That’s not racist, that’s just keeping it real.
What this was ? Justice reform really. Kyle Rittenhouse case was 4 whites doing what they did to each other at a Blake Jacob riot. This was 4 dudes (3x white & 1x black) Not guilty in the Rittenhouse trial and nothing really happens for riots that even approached BLM Summer 2020 riots. This one comes back with 3 not guilty verdicts and you don’t want to be a white person when the riots break out. That’s the human race in a nutshell, regardless of what color your skin is, there is a tendency for retaliation in the emotion of the moment.
The wildest incident post Kyle Rittenhouse decision that was time coincidental was the SUV that drove thru a crowd in WI. Darrell Brooks is another name. And I’ll say it, since nobody else has the stones to, A black man that was running from a domestic violence call that involved Brooks. That’s just one instance where a lot of the Arbury article is debunked as myth. If any person, regardless of race, had the same rap sheet that Brooks did in Flagler county, they’d also most likely be on a 1st name basis with FCSO personnel and have logged their time in the Green Roof Inn. Look at the photos of many in the stories for any media, There are just as many if not more white felons as there are black & Hispanic ones. I recall the only one that I’ve seen reported on locally was the prostitution ring that went down involving the Asian. A criminal is a criminal that happens to be the race they are when they committed their crime(s). The rioting & looting Summer 2020, that was nothing more than opportunists taking advantage to rob businesses. It’s ironic, nobody mentioned races of the victims of having their retail businesses completely ruined. But you’re going to find, they were as diverse for people of color that nobody gives a damn about just the same & they only have insurance claim to get their lives back even remotely close to what it was before the criminals ruined their lives with a protest turned riot chaos as their tool to victimize others.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspect-waukesha-parade-deaths-charged-5-counts-intentional-homicide-rcna6536
Michael Cocchiola says
A big win for justice in America. I know most of us decried the Rittenhouse verdict but we have to accept progress in fits and starts. Life in the era of The Big Lie.
History, however harsh it will be on Trump will underestimate the horrible damage he has done and continues to do to our society. My guess is he will be vilified as much as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and other evil despots.
A.j says
I am glad about the verdict. Will America find a way to let these white gi free. I believe they will try.
palmcoaster says
Applause to the jurors, the prosecutor and the judge as justice has been served! Also thanks to the video taken by one of the convicted maybe with the idea that within Trump administration they will be absolved of murder and cheered like Kyle Rittenhouse now in Mara Lago by Trump and in Congress by right wingers that want to hire him as their page assistant, shameless.
JEK says
I’m glad justice ruled the day.
Rxx says
Good. Rot in prison. Although it’s a GOP governor so expect commuted sentences.
A.j says
Totally agree. If he does he can expect to lose his seat during the next election.
makeitso1701 says
Finally justice prevails! I hope these racist animals rot in prison. Thank goodness that Biden is president, if the orange man was still president he’d probably pardon the racist animals and give them some kinda of KKK medal.
Denali says
The president cannot pardon someone for crimes against a state – only federal crimes. Now if they are convicted of federal hate crimes, that would be a presidential matter.
Michael Cocchiola says
Aside from the absurdity of Georgia’s White vigilante-friendly law, and despite the fact that Arbery committed no crime, it was the judge’s instructions to the jury that brought justice to this case. He clearly explained the citizen’s arrest law – what it is and what it isn’t. And the mostly White jury apparently listened and had the courage to rightfully vote to convict.
I say this because as opposed to the above, the “judge” in the Rittenhouse case clearly seemed determined to disrupt the prosecution’s case and to urge the jury toward acquittal. So, the murderer of two and violent assault on one walks free as a Rabid Republican hero. Perhaps there’ll be civil suits forthcoming. Hope so.
Joan says
I am very grateful that the jury saw the truth of what occurred in this case and found the men guilty of murder. Mr. Aubry was hunted down and killed for no reason and thankfully justice was served. His family and friends will always suffer his loss but at least they will have peace knowing those who caused his demise will pay for their actions. May these tragedies never occur again.
Ray W. says
When I was in law school, I cooked in a Shores restaurant during the summer and holiday breaks. My wife often dropped me off in the afternoon and I would run home after closing, a distance of about two miles on A-1-A. On weekends, the restaurant stayed open until 1:00 am to serve customers who wanted dinner after leaving a popular C&W bar across the street. On many a late night or early morning, I ran home without any interference from either the Shores or Daytona Beach patrol officers, waving to them as I ran down the road. As a white male running through residential neighborhoods as well as business districts on the beachside, I never encountered a single vigilante attempting to make a citizen’s arrest.
During those summers, I also clerked for my father. In one case, he represented four young Black men who had been stopped by a trooper during FHP’s years of Project Interdiction, with a trafficking amount of cocaine being seized. The issue to be argued during that afternoon’s motion to suppress centered on “driving while black” as the reason for the stop. My father carefully instructed the men to leave his Silver Beach office and turn right to drive north on Peninsula. Then, turn right to drive east on Main. Then, turn right to drive south on A-1-A. Then, turn right on Silver Beach and drive west across the Orange Avenue bridge to the Courthouse Annex on City Island, where the hearing was to be heard at 1:00 pm. He emphasized that they needed to obey all traffic rules and to decline to consent to any search, if stopped. The four men left with plenty of time to make it to the hearing. The trial judge, some minutes after the hearing was scheduled to begin, asked my father if he knew when the clients would arrive. My father explained in detail his instructions to his clients. He then stated that his clients may be in the middle of a search on Main Street and added that the judge should ask the bailiff to contact Daytona Beach Police Department dispatchers. Sure enough, the men made it about 100 feet on Main Street before being stopped. Yes, their car was being searched.
In another case, the trooper stopped a Black man for driving with inoperative tag lights. The car was impounded in the old sheriff’s compound west of DeLand on SR44. I rode with our office’s investigator to the compound after getting a court order to inspect the impounded car. In the presence of a sheriff’s employee whom i asked to watch the tag lights, my investigator started the car and turned on the lights. Both tag lights came on. I got the sheriff’s employee’s name and listed him as a witness.
Then there was the older model car, in good condition, that had the gas cap located behind the license tag on the rear bumper. While similar models had license tags that folded down when the tank was to be filled, this model had the hinge at the top of the tag. The trooper swore that he had stopped a south-Florida-based Black driver at night because both ends of the tag were bent outwards enough to obstructed the light from the bumper mounted tag lightbulbs; he testified that he could not read the obscured tag numbers and stopped the car. After the trooper described the bent ends of the tag during the hearing, my father asked the trial judge to drive to a walled and gated compound located behind a towing company on East Dunlawton. At the compound, the judge inspected the bent tag ends. My father asked him to try and swing the tag upwards as if to fill the tank with gasoline. The bent edges of the tag impacted the bumper, preventing the filling of the gas tank. The gas tank was still relatively full. My father asked the trial judge to find that this particular car ran on gasoline and that the tag edges had to have been unbent when the tank was filled during the 250-mile drive north.
Then there was a deputy’s stop of a Black male driver who was accompanied by his wife. The deputy found a gun inside the passenger compartment and arrested the driver. In the presence of the cuffed driver, the deputy placed the wife in cuffs. The man protested her arrest by stating it was his gun. The deputy’s arrest affidavit and offense report detailed the stop, but failed the list the existence of a dashboard video-recording of the entire event. A responding deputy’s supplemental report reflected that the assisting deputy had reviewed such a recording on the scene of the stop. Despite repeated requests, the prosecutor insisted that no such video-recording existed. I drove over to the SAO’s Daytona Beach office and told the receptionist that I was not leaving until I had the recording, handing her a copy of the supplemental report (prosecutors have an absolute Constitutional duty to immediately turn over any possible exculpatory evidence, with a few limited exceptions). 45 minutes later, I had my copy of the recording. I drove to a restaurant where my father was dining with a 60 Minutes producer who was preparing for an interview on the subject of I-95 traffic stops and handed over the recording. Later that night, the three of us travelled to my father’s home and watched it for the first time. When the cuffed husband protested his wife’s arrest, the deputy slugged him in the face, knocking him out with one punch. The deputy then called for an ambulance to respond to the scene. As the bloodied and groggy man moaned and groaned while barely rolling back and forth on the ground, the deputy read him his rights, finishing with the question: Do you understand your rights? The deputy then called dispatch to cancel the ambulance, stating that the cuffed man was only bleeding a little bit, though he was still laying partially conscious on the ground. I understood why the deputy, out of self-preservation, declined to refer to the recording in either his complaint affidavit or his incident report and why he failed to list it in the evidence section of either document; he apparently did not expect the assisting deputy to refer to it in the separate supplemental report. The recording became the centerpiece of the 60 Minutes segment.
It is not that our laws are all flawed. Indeed, some old laws were passed to protect minorities. Florida may still have the crime proscribing the tying of an alligator to a fire hydrant on the books. It seems that at one time the Klan liked to burn things. Tying an alligator to a fire hydrant simply slowed down any response to a fire. The problem is that prosecutors and law enforcement officers exercise discretion in arbitrary and capricious ways. I am unaware of any appellate court opinions on the lawfulness of making it a crime to tie an alligator to a fire hydrant. That does not prove that prosecutors never used the statute against Klans arsonists, but if they did, no one ever appealed the trial court’s judgment or sentence. It is not a new problem. It is not an easy problem to resolve. Indeed, when the U.S. Supreme Court banned the death penalty in the late ’60’s, the ruling was based on a finding that prosecutors routinely engaged in the arbitrary and capricious application of the death penalty against minority citizens. Once state legislatures passed new statutes incorporating aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the death penalty once again passed constitutional muster, at least thus far.
A.j says
WOW, thanks for the information.
Michael Cocchiola says
Justice served!
A.j says
Thank GOD for videos and cell phone recorders. If we didn’t have that, those white probably would have been free. What predominantly white jury will believe a Black Man over white murderes none. Because of the film I believe these men will go to prison for a long time. I’m glad the jurors didn’t allow the defense sway their thinking about the tape. This good but we have a long way to go. Will a white get away next time. Only time will tell.
Bill C says
In 2013 the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “The current coverage system,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “is based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day.” In other words, the idea of racial bias was in the rear view mirror. This case proves how wrong that decision was.
Jackson1955 says
Accountability doesn’t come often enough, but sometimes it does happen. Well done.
What people need to take from this, is that you don’t have a right to take the law into your own hands, they should have called the cops and protected their own property. Once that guy ran off they needed to let him go.
Let’s not forget these three murderers had actually gotten away with this crime — until the general public saw the video. We need neutral and honest people to monitor exactly who our District Attorneys are letting off the hook. Jackie Johnson will be next to get sentenced.
Andy Dufresne says
The three stooges ’bout to get shipped up river into a deep south prison system mostly full of fellas that look just like the one they killed. Gonna be a long hard row to hoe, and no amount of republican Jesus can help you now.
Denali says
As much as your scenario would be poetic justice for these ‘men’, I fear that they will end up in some kind of Georgia country club for the ‘superior race’ felons. You know, three squares a day (with seconds in the dessert line), all the fresh air and exercise they want, tennis in the morning, golf in the afternoon, first run movies after dinner and fresh linens daily. But they have yet to be sentenced – is ‘time served’ a possibility? After all,it is Georgia.
Sherry says
Ray W. . . Thank you again for your excellent personal stories. These, in particular, give excellent examples of the wide spread systemic discrimination historically and currently in our society. Most people of color essentially live a completely different reality. Every day, in every way, they have a much steeper hill to climb. Unfortunately, those who really need to learn from your writings will likely never read them.
In the Arbery circumstance, the defense pointed out that Mr. Arbery could have, and should have, just run away through the surrounding yards. A “white” person could have exercised that option safely enough. . . but, can you imagine what would have happened if a black person trespassed through properties owned by fully armed home owners? “Think” about that everyone.