Though my mind clearly thought “just this once …” I wanted to seize a brief moment to be tentatively hopeful.
But … yeah. I know 
Definitely a good thing. It gives me a ray of hope. We still have a ways to go but I’ll take any positive step we can get.
That defense lawyer who brought up the victim’s khakis, lack of socks, and dirty toenails- damn I hope she loses a shitload of business over her conduct.
i was a bit concerned when i heard the makeup of the jury, then i read that there were 5 women in the jury. that is when i felt a bit better.
when the prosecutor mentioned in closing, to see it from arbery’s view, that a pickup truck comes up to you and the people inside start to yell at you. then it follows you, still yelling at you. then one comes out with a gun.
i believe that would speak to the women differently than the men. as a woman when a car pulls up to you, many don’t see it as friendly. it could be anything from a request for directions, or an unwanted remark on your person, or someone trying to grab you. it is rarely a good thing. many times first thought is to get back out of reach. that is what arbery did, get out of reach and away from the truck.
I think it’s also telling that all they could say is that “he looked angry” “he grumbled” “he ignored me”. By the killers own words, when they drove up beside him Arbery did nothing back to them nor say anything back to them.
The killers did nothing but escalate and kill a man who was jogging. Who tried to run away. Like jeez.
Since both were happening at the same time it’s easy to make comparisons with the Rittenhouse trial. In that trial as it went on even the prosecution’s witnesses were helping the self defense case. It became clear that a not guilty verdict was a good possibility. In the Aubrey case I didn’t see one thing that would make me consider even slightly that they might be not guilty.
I’m not sure if this was already covered - and please don’t take this as any sort of devil’s advocacy - but what is the deal with multiple counts of murder and assault for each defendant?
This article that was written before the verdict explains it pretty well.
It’s a good article that I saw previously. It explains most things, but not explicitly why there were four felony murder chargers for each defendant. From the definition of felony murder in Georgia (“intentionally commits another felony and a person dies as a result”) I would assume that each of the four felony murder charges are associated with the four other felony charges each of them faced. Plus there is the malice murder charge, for the total of nine charges.
I think that the charge has to specifically set out the felony that is alleged to have been the basis for the felony murder charge - what was the underlying felony that contributed to the death.
So if the jury wasn’t satisfied that there had been false imprisonment, but there had been an assault, for instance, they would acquit on felony murder re false imprisonment, but convict on felony murder re assault.
As it turned out, they obviously found that all the underlying felonies had been made out, so therefore conviction on all of the felony murder counts.
This is handy:
This chart illustrates the point I made in the GD thread. Bryan was acquitted on one of the felony counts, aggravated assault, and therefore had to be acquitted on the related felony murder count.
Big McMichael was not guilty of malice murder but was guilty of 4 counts of felony murder. Was malice murder one of the felonies? Or is there something else I’m missing?
Can someone explain to the legally impaired how you can be convicted on four counts of murder when you only killed a single person?
So it looks like all murder convictions are merged into one for sentencing, so effectively all have identical convictions for murder and the judge gets to decide whether or not to grant parole terms. Death is off the table because the prosecutor did not seek it.
Murder: Either life without parole or a mandatory minimum of 30 years to life w/possible parole. All three of them.
Aggravated Assault: 1-20 years per count, 2-40 for the McMichaels, 1-20 for Bryan.
False Imprisonment: 1-10 years each, so 2-20 for all of three of them.
None of them are realistically ever likely to get out of prison while they are ambulatory.
ETA: They must each actually serve 30 years before they are eligible for parole, even assuming it is granted. So even if it were possible to sentence them to serve all charges consecutively (I don’t know if it is) and even if they get parole, they are all spending a minimum of the next 30 years in the pokey.
No, malice murder was the charge that stood alone. The four felony murder charges each had felony charges associated with them. Bryan was acquitted of one count of aggravated assault and hence also acquitted of one of the felony murder counts; except for that, all three were convicted of all of the felony murder charges. Travis McMichael was convicted of everything, including the malice murder charge.
Thanks. Missed that there were 2 assault charges. That’s where I went wrong.
That is also my understanding of the penalties under Georgia law. The judge doesn’t have much discretion. Pretty draconian penalties, actually, but these hateful racist assholes deserve it. No one should be deceived by the fact that, perhaps with the aid of their lawyers, they looked fairly respectable in court in their nice suits. Travis McMichael looked especially civilized, but he was probably the worst murderous redneck of the three.
Alright, I think I get the charges. It’s not that there were four murders committed (obviously), it’s that there were four felonies committed and each one is exacerbated by the murder.
Under the felony murder law, it appears that every time a felony is committed, that potentially opens the accused to a felony murder charge as well, if the underlying felony contributed to the death.
Each of them was charged with four separate felonies. Therefore, each was potentially liable for four counts of felony murder.
What’s the reaction been to the McMichael/Bryan verdict among conservatives?