Guilty. See that Legal Insurrection report for a breakdown of who and which charges.Travis McMichael (the son who actually pulled the trigger) is guiltyof malice murder. Daddy and the their neighbor got felony murder raps, due to Arbery’s death in the commission of their own crimes. What with the defendants’ ever changing story, and the apparent near-botch by prosecution — once they got a prosecutor who didn’t have to be recused — I think the jury did a good job of sorting through what really happened. “Roddy” Bryan’s convenient video record of their crimes helped.
Y’all may recall that I thought these bastards were guilty of murder ever since the story broke last year. Unlike some — who assumed that Arbery, being black, was up to no good and got what he allegedly “deserved” — I based my opnion on video, police reports, prosecution letter, witness statements, and the houseowner’s statements to press that nothing had been stolen from his place. I then reviewed the several applicable Georgia laws, and concluded the scumbags were guilty as sin.
The jury agreed.
A morbidly amusing reminder: This case resulted in Georgia’s “citizen arrest” law being changed; dumbasses assuming that’s what the McMichaels had been up to when they killed Arbery. But the McMichaels hadn’t invoked “citizen’s arrest; that was done months later, by the second crooked prosecutor when he recused himself (worked with the elder McMichael). And, as written at the time, the law didn’t even allow them to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Arbery. At least the jury was smart enough to figure that out.
No doubt the the McMichaels and Bryan will appeal.
