Cont: Jogging in Georgia while black - The Trial

But anyway back on topic.

As always the longer it takes the Jury to reach a decision the (in general, it's like a rule or anything) that means less change of a meaningful guilty verdict.

If they are guilty on the actual meaningful murder chargers, we'll (again most likely) have an answer by end of day tomorrow. If it's after the Holiday break the odds go way down.

And again to stress I hope they are found guilty, it's not even that I don't think they well it's just that "Lookit how great the prosecution is doing" isn't what's filling me with confidence.
 
If everyone could just take a moment to once again relish the fact that these idiots had gotten away Scott-free, then...and of entirely their own choosing and action....released their snuff film to the public. It wasn't accidentally discovered. They did it on purpose. Awkward silences going on at the Defendant's bench right about now.
 
Well yeah that's one of the things that scares me. They either A) believe their own nonsense, B) are so absolutely certain that they will get off or C) a little of both and that mentality didn't come about in a vacuum.

Sure maybe the Good Ole' Boy network will fail them. But they seem to have a LOT of confidence that it won't. And that confidence scares me. The possibility that they are reading the room better than us is what scares me.
 
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I wasn't watching this trial super closely, did Roddie try to separate himself from his accomplices?

His guilt seems to have the most chance of wriggling out of. He could probably claim that he wasn't aware until the end that the two other men were armed, or that they didn't have any good reason to give chase. Maybe he could try to claim that he was just an idiot who took the two other men's word at face value.

Seems a bit thin, and people have been found party to murder for far less than what Roddie did, but I could see a jury trying to split this hair.

The two McMichaels seem well and truly ******, and Roddie's best chance would be to try to distance himself from their bad decisions and just try to paint himself as a gullible idiot that got sucked into someone else's criminal acts.
 
I'm not sure who watched it or not, but by reading the room (and their faces) I'd say they felt like their chances were ****.

Mind you, they didn't release the video to a) the public or b) in its entirety. They knew the chase was what would do them in and that's why they didn't tell anyone. The place they shared it was a private, community group. So "public" in that it's facebook, but private in that they didn't think society would get their hands on it. No argument with the term "unforced error" though. That's an extremely apt analogy.

I also don't know if we can read that much into the time the jury deliberates in this case. Usually there's 1 defendant that has to be decided on. This time it's 3, and all had varying roles in the over all murder. It could be Travis's fate was decided within minutes of getting in the room. It could be the decision on Roddie will not come for awhile as his participation is different. It could be he even gets a mistrial or acquitted all together.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I wasn't watching this trial super closely, did Roddie try to separate himself from his accomplices?
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A little bit, but not really until the closing argument, and even then not with the type of enthusiasm I had expected. I think he should have pushed it significantly harder.

SuburbanTurkey said:
His guilt seems to have the most chance of wriggling out of. He could probably claim that he wasn't aware until the end that the two other men were armed, or that they didn't have any good reason to give chase. Maybe he could try to claim that he was just an idiot who took the two other men's word at face value.
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All of this is technically true. He didn't know anything about any the actions of that day at all.

SuburbanTurkey said:
Seems a bit thin, and people have been found party to murder for far less than what Roddie did, but I could see a jury trying to split this hair.

The two McMichaels seem well and truly ******, and Roddie's best chance would be to try to distance himself from their bad decisions and just try to paint himself as a gullible idiot that got sucked into someone else's criminal acts.
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It sounds a lot like "I was just following orders" but it's possible that's how the jury will view it.

Arbery was seen in the community multiple times, multiple neighbors had discussions about him and had seen the videos from inside the house. He could claim that he thought they had seen something and he was trying to help them as a good citizen.

It's curious why his lawyer didn't argue this harder in his closing or during the trial.
 
Honestly it wasn't until the closing arguments that "Oh yeah these three guys had different roles" really seem to come up at all.
 
Warp12 said:
What is the riot threshold, verdict-wise? Any guesses?
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Not sure what this means, but I don't see it being any issue. I can't overstate my confidence that Travis McMichael will go to prison for, in all probability, the rest of his life. I have no doubts at all that the father will get some time. I don't know that he'll get hit as hard, I think Travis will get hit the hardest, but he definitely, definitely aided and abetted this murder. The prosecutor really, really drove that home too. She took it step-by-step on how he did it.

JoeMorgue said:
Honestly it wasn't until the closing arguments that "Oh yeah these three guys had different roles" really seem to come up at all.
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Yeah, I was going to post before that if they were going to go that route I was confused as to why they didn't just all pitch in. None of the arguments were all that different. Really odd.
 
plague311 said:
Not sure what this means, but I don't see it being any issue. I can't overstate my confidence that Travis McMichael will go to prison for, in all probability, the rest of his life. I have no doubts at all that the father will get some time. I don't know that he'll get hit as hard, I think Travis will get hit the hardest, but he definitely, definitely aided and abetted this murder. The prosecutor really, really drove that home too. She took it step-by-step on how he did it.



Yeah, I was going to post before that if they were going to go that route I was confused as to why they didn't just all pitch in. None of the arguments were all that different. Really odd.
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Juries can do whatever they feel like, but I imagine instruction about how felony murder is supposed to work will carry a lot of weight. The dad, riding around in the back of the murder machine hootin and hollerin during a lynching seems like an easy candidate for throwing onto the "felony murder" bonfire.

Roddie, by the technical reading of the law, seems as liable as the others for taking part in a felony that resulted in death. Striking the unarmed man with his truck seems like sufficient buy-in to me, but maybe a jury will try to cut him a break.
 
I can't understand how anyone could get themselves into a mentality where the idea of a young father looking out for his neighborhood, who was attacked for his trouble, NOT going to prison for the rest of his life is somehow some kind of "dark scenario I'm really worried might happen!"

Like, this is a guy who was trying to protect his community and trying to stop a criminal so police could question him. This is a man who served his country for nearly a decade. A father, a veteran, and someone who is civic minded enough and brave enough to go confront a criminal to try to make his community safer for everyone in it.

And it's some kind of dark "says a lot about our country and how backwards it is!" type of thing for him to NOT go rot in prison for doing that? How do you people get into this worldview? It's twisted.

I believe that the racial dynamics have a lot of explanatory power here. I think if it had been a white burglar they went and confronted and ended up having to shoot in self-defense, this wouldn't even be a story and (video or not) they would've never been charged. I suspect a lot of people who currently are treating the idea of a not guilty verdict as something akin to "welp, guess the KKK runs the country!" would treat a not guilty verdict if Arbery was white as nothing more than a momentary "gosh, America has some weird self defense laws and derp derp, guns are bad and America sure loves guns!" or more likely yet, they wouldn't even hear about the case to comment on it at all.

These three men should not be punished because the criminal they confronted happened to be black. They didn't get to choose what color the criminal was. It's especially perverse to make a criminal being black some sort of trigger for far harsher punishment and attention on a case, when a criminal being black is like a rapist being male.
 
Skeptic Tank said:
I can't understand how anyone could get themselves into a mentality where the idea of a young father looking out for his neighborhood, who was attacked for his trouble, NOT going to prison for the rest of his life is somehow some kind of "dark scenario I'm really worried might happen!"

Like, this is a guy who was trying to protect his community and trying to stop a criminal so police could question him. This is a man who served his country for nearly a decade. A father, a veteran, and someone who is civic minded enough and brave enough to go confront a criminal to try to make his community safer for everyone in it.

And it's some kind of dark "says a lot about our country and how backwards it is!" type of thing for him to NOT go rot in prison for doing that? How do you people get into this worldview? It's twisted.

I believe that the racial dynamics have a lot of explanatory power here. I think if it had been a white burglar they went and confronted and ended up having to shoot in self-defense, this wouldn't even be a story and (video or not) they would've never been charged. I suspect a lot of people who currently are treating the idea of a not guilty verdict as something akin to "welp, guess the KKK runs the country!" would treat a not guilty verdict if Arbery was white as nothing more than a momentary "gosh, America has some weird self defense laws and derp derp, guns are bad and America sure loves guns!" or more likely yet, they wouldn't even hear about the case to comment on it at all.

These three men should not be punished because the criminal they confronted happened to be black. They didn't get to choose what color the criminal was. It's especially perverse to make a criminal being black some sort of trigger for far harsher punishment and attention on a case, when a criminal being black is like a rapist being male.
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I wonder if the elder McMichael will kill himself when they are all convicted. Must be hard knowing you're such a screw up that you not only pissed away your own life, but lead your own son to utter destruction.

Are there other children of the family, or is the whole basket of eggs getting smashed in one fell swoop?
 
Skeptic Tank said:
I can't understand how anyone could get themselves into a mentality where the idea of a young father looking out for his neighborhood, who was attacked for his trouble, NOT going to prison for the rest of his life is somehow some kind of "dark scenario I'm really worried might happen!"

Like, this is a guy who was trying to protect his community and trying to stop a criminal so police could question him. This is a man who served his country for nearly a decade. A father, a veteran, and someone who is civic minded enough and brave enough to go confront a criminal to try to make his community safer for everyone in it.

And it's some kind of dark "says a lot about our country and how backwards it is!" type of thing for him to NOT go rot in prison for doing that? How do you people get into this worldview? It's twisted.

I believe that the racial dynamics have a lot of explanatory power here. I think if it had been a white burglar they went and confronted and ended up having to shoot in self-defense, this wouldn't even be a story and (video or not) they would've never been charged. I suspect a lot of people who currently are treating the idea of a not guilty verdict as something akin to "welp, guess the KKK runs the country!" would treat a not guilty verdict if Arbery was white as nothing more than a momentary "gosh, America has some weird self defense laws and derp derp, guns are bad and America sure loves gu ns!" or more likely yet, they wouldn't even hear about the case to comment on it at all.

These three men should not be punished because the criminal they confronted happened to be black. They didn't get to choose what color the criminal was. It's especially perverse to make a criminal being black some sort of trigger for far harsher punishment and attention on a case, when a criminal being black is like a rapist being male.
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You have posted about something entirely different to the case that has been taken to trial.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I wonder if the elder McMichael will kill himself when they are all convicted. Must be hard knowing you're such a screw up that you not only pissed away your own life, but lead your own son to utter destruction.

Are there other children of the family, or is the whole basket of eggs getting smashed in one fell swoop?
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Why do you delight in the idea of this family being destroyed in that way?

Where does this hatred arise from?

Is it Hollywood? Did they so effectively teach you to hate white men? To hate Southerners?

Is it really that vile of a notion to you that some men would go confront a criminal?

Is the media and their racial narratives really so powerful that you can't see Arbery for the common miscreant / criminal he was? Running someone like that off out of your neighborhood is one of the most basic steps required to keep an area nice and safe and livable.

What sort of neighborhood do people who pretend that is not the case end up living in? Or rather, end up selling their houses and moving out of?
 
Skeptic Tank said:
Why do you delight in the idea of this family being destroyed in that way?

Where does this hatred arise from?

Is it Hollywood? Did they so effectively teach you to hate white men? To hate Southerners?

Is it really that vile of a notion to you that some men would go confront a criminal?

Is the media and their racial narratives really so powerful that you can't see Arbery for the common miscreant / criminal he was? Running someone like that off out of your neighborhood is one of the most basic steps required to keep an area nice and safe and livable.

What sort of neighborhood do people who pretend that is not the case end up living in? Or rather, end up selling their houses and moving out of?
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I trust you'll be putting money on their canteen account for the next few decades. ;)
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Juries can do whatever they feel like, but I imagine instruction about how felony murder is supposed to work will carry a lot of weight. The dad, riding around in the back of the murder machine hootin and hollerin during a lynching seems like an easy candidate for throwing onto the "felony murder" bonfire.
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No arguments here. Technically there's a malice murder and a felony murder. The total charges are:

A nine-count indictment charges all three with one count 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 false imprisonment.
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Pretty good recent article on AP here.

It doesn't look good for them either if convicted:

The minimum penalty is life in prison. It is up to the judge to decide whether that comes with or without the possibility of parole. Even if the possibility of parole is granted, a person convicted of murder must serve 30 years before becoming eligible.
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Either way the father and Roddie are dying in prison and Travis's son will be in his mid-30s before Travis even has a chance to get out.

SuburbanTurkey said:
Are there other children of the family, or is the whole basket of eggs getting smashed in one fell swoop?
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For sure a mother and daughter out there that I know of as they were brought up during the trial.
 
Skeptic Tank said:
I can't understand how anyone could get themselves into a mentality where the idea of a young father looking out for his neighborhood, who was attacked for his trouble, NOT going to prison for the rest of his life is somehow some kind of "dark scenario I'm really worried might happen!"

Like, this is a guy who was trying to protect his community and trying to stop a criminal so police could question him. This is a man who served his country for nearly a decade. A father, a veteran, and someone who is civic minded enough and brave enough to go confront a criminal to try to make his community safer for everyone in it.

And it's some kind of dark "says a lot about our country and how backwards it is!" type of thing for him to NOT go rot in prison for doing that? How do you people get into this worldview? It's twisted.

I believe that the racial dynamics have a lot of explanatory power here. I think if it had been a white burglar they went and confronted and ended up having to shoot in self-defense, this wouldn't even be a story and (video or not) they would've never been charged. I suspect a lot of people who currently are treating the idea of a not guilty verdict as something akin to "welp, guess the KKK runs the country!" would treat a not guilty verdict if Arbery was white as nothing more than a momentary "gosh, America has some weird self defense laws and derp derp, guns are bad and America sure loves guns!" or more likely yet, they wouldn't even hear about the case to comment on it at all.

These three men should not be punished because the criminal they confronted happened to be black. They didn't get to choose what color the criminal was. It's especially perverse to make a criminal being black some sort of trigger for far harsher punishment and attention on a case, when a criminal being black is like a rapist being male.
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If he had been a white "burglar" they would probably all be out in the McMichael's boat right now having a beer together.
 
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