This is it exactly! They had no right to give orders and he no reason to have to listen to them.
It's not a question of their rights. It's a question of whether they had
legal authority under Georgia law to make a citizen's arrest.
Their defense will claim they did have sufficient probable cause that a felony had occurred, the Arbery committed it, and therefore they had legal authority to arrest him. They will try to depict Arbery's actions as resisting a lawful arrest, and claim the shooting him was self defense.
And the fact that people are saying he should have listened, just shows the systemic problem. Why would it be ok for two non-official white men to go around giving other people orders? And would they have done it this same way had the runner been white? I think not.
This is the difference between political/socioeconomic
opinion,
law, and legal
strategy.
Philosophically and historically, you may be right...or not. With regard to these two individuals, we really don't have any indication one way or the other whether a) they are racists, and b) whether their racial feelings
drove their behavior in this particular case.
But that focus on what we may think was going through the minds of the defendants is a dangerous trap that diverts attention from the facts and the law to
irrelevant speculation that could doom the case.
To the
LAW, their racial attitudes are irrelevant, and focusing on them is the path to a Not Guilty verdict. The LAW in this case revolves around whether their attempt to detain or arrest Arbery was
lawfully justified. It doesn't matter what color anyone's skin is to the law -- they were either acting legally, or illegally.
If they were acting
legally, Arbery was resisting a lawful arrest, and they will probably be found not guilty because they acted in self defense. If authorities thought they were acting legally, they wouldn't have charged them.
If they were acting
illegally (which I believe they were), they should be found guilty because you can't go into a store to rob it and then claim you shot the owner in self-defense.
From a
STRATEGY perspective, the prosecution needs to focus on the law, and the facts. There's a saying in law that goes like this:
"If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound on the table."
The prosecutors need to pound on the law and the facts. They need to stick to the idea that the defendants had
no reasonable probable cause to believe any crime had occurred...and also, the fact that
no crime actually occurred. Therefore, the contact with Arbery was illegal, and they can't claim either self-defense or justifiable use of force.
There will be pressure to make the case a racial justice showcase, but that would be a huge strategic mistake, IMHO.
The way to ensure
true racial justice in this case is to
let the law work the way it is supposed to work -- color-blind, fact-based, and law-based. Justice -- racial or otherwise -- will only be truly done if they approach the case that way.
If the prosecutors yield to the pressure and try to make this a showcase, they open the door to all sorts of defense arguments, any one of which could well lead to a Not Guilty decision by the jury.
A racial justice crusade may make some people feel good, but the outcome is likely to be the opposite of what the family and the community deserve.
