Slavery-era Georgia law is key defense argument in trial over Ahmaud Arbery's killing
"Legal observers say prosecutors will seek to convince the jury that there was no felony over which to arrest Arbery, 25, and that the three men lacked the "reasonable and probable suspicion" required under the old citizen's arrest law. The trial is in the second week of jury selection.
Before Arbery's killing, the law had been largely unchanged since it was codified in 1863, when Georgia was part of the slaveholding Southern Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War.
Just before he was cornered and shot to death, Arbery had entered an unoccupied property where a house was under construction. The owner of the property has said nothing was taken and that Arbery, who was on a Sunday afternoon jog, probably just stopped there for a drink of water.
"Citizen's arrest is a big part of our case, a big part," Kevin Gough, a lawyer for Bryan, said in an interview earlier this month before the judge presiding over the murder trial in Glynn County Superior Court issued a partial gag order.
"They changed the law, but changing the law doesn't affect us. It doesn't change what was the law of the land at the time."
Slavery-era Georgia law is key defense argument in trial over Ahmaud Arbery's killing (msn.com)
"Dura Lex, Sed Lex."
- The law is ugly, but it is the law
The echoes of the "Good Old Days" still ring loudly here from time to time. But that din rings less and less as the Nation progresses.
