Only Travis McMichael was found guilty of Count 1, Malice Murder, but all the defendants were found guilty of multiple counts of felony murder, so they’re all looking at life in prison without the possibility of early release.
COUNT l – MALICE MURDER, O.C.G.A. 16-5-1
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Not Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Not Guilty
COUNT 2 – FELONY MURDER, O.C.G.A. 16-5-1 – Aggravated Assault (firearm)
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Not Guilty
COUNT 3 – FELONY MURDER, O.C.G.A. 16-5-1 – Aggravated Assault (truck)
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
COUNT 4 – FELONY MURDER, O.C.G.A. 16-5-1 – False Imprisonment
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
COUNT 5 – FELONY MURDER, O.C.G.A. 16-5-1 – Criminal Attempt to Commit False Imprisonment
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
COUNT 6 – AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, O.C.G.A. 16-5-21 – Assault with firearm, deadly weapon, to wit: a 12 gauge shotgun
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Not Guilty
COUNT 7 – AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, O.C.G.A. 16-5-21 – Assault with a Ford F-150 pickup truck and a Chevy Silverado pickup truck
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
COUNT 8 – FALSE IMPRISONMENT, O.C.G.A. 16-5-41 – Unlawfully confine and detain Ahmaud Arbery without legal authority, to wit: said accused did chase Ahmaud Arbery with a Ford F-150 pickup truck and a Chevy Silverado pickup truck through the public roadways of the Satilla Shores neighborhood and did confine and detain Ahmaud Arbery on Holmes Drive using said pickup trucks.
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
COUNT 9 – CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT A FELONY, O.C.G.A. 16-4-1 – In violation of the personal liberty of Ahmaud Arbery, unlawfully chase Ahmaud Arbery through the public roadways of the Satilla Shores neighborhood in pickup trucks and did attempt to confine and detain Ahmaud Arbery without legal authority on Burford Drive using a Ford F-150 pickup truck and a Chevy Silverado pickup truck.
TRAVIS MCMICHAEL Guilty
GREG MCMICHAEL Guilty
WILLIAM R BRYAN Guilty
Remember
You carry a gun so you’re hard to kill.
Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
Nothing in this content constitutes legal advice. Nothing in this content establishes an attorney-client relationship, nor confidentiality. If you are in immediate need of legal advice, retain a licensed, competent attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.
I have been warned many times that attempting a Citizen’s Arrest can be a very dangerous thing.
In this case the defendants had no valid explanation of why they were doing what they did, and did not understand how their actions relate to law.
I bet Bryan wishes he could go back and erase that video rather than releasing it to the public. Far from exonerating them, as he apparently thought, it really put the noose around their necks.
Agree. Or, not make the video in the first place. As for erasing the video, there is a principle in law (Andrew can better explain this) that says that if a person erases or conceals a video (let’s say a dash cam video of an accident), the jury may infer that the video contains or contained information negative to the person who erased or concealed the video.
In any case, it’s a good thing that the archaic Georgia citizen’s arrest statute was repealed. Better to focus on improving self-defense law in the various states.
I’d rather see Georgia strengthen the citizen’s arrest law than repeal it.
Georgia shot itself in the foot by repealing its citizens arrest statute. The law worked fine for 500 years and it would have worked fine in this case if the judge had been competent enough to understand it.
Hard to claim self defense when you chase a guy down and detain him.
Not really, cops do it all the time.
But they gave up the chase before arbery turned around and ran to them at their parked truck, while they were moving nowhere.
Did you see Andrew’s previous video in his analysis of the the closing arguments? Andrew made a very strong case for all three being acquitted based on the law. Have you viewed the video, especially in slow motion? First, Arbery could have continued running away. The defendants yelled at him that the police had been called. Arbery could have just stopped where he was and waited for the police. Instead, he turned and charged at Travis and grabbed for the shotgun. There was a heck of a fight during which Travis was mostly backing away and Arbery was punching Travis about the head and face. It is not clear in the video, but it appears to me that Arbery, in pulling and tugging on the shotgun, may have caused the shotgun to discharge.
One could make the statement that Kyle Rittenhouse would have been better served to have not been where he was at that time. But the fact remains that he had a legal right to be there and to be armed. In a similar manner, the McMichaels and Bryan would have been better served to have not tried to stop Arbery. But, given the totality of information known to the McMichaels I think they were legally authorized to detain Arbery for the police.
The case is clearly a modern day lynching being done under color of law. No evidence in the record that any crime was committed. Probably take another 10 uears to overtun the convictions. That is why Andrew preaches about minding your own business when it comes to using force for any purpose other than necessary self defense. Also why all lawyers preach keep your mouth shut after a shooting.
You must not have watached the trial
I did see Atty Andrew’s video. He spells it all out wonderfully. I wasn’t happy with the rhetoric of prosecutor, Linda, yesterday and I believe that really swayed the jury’s decision. Of course mob threats help. Most haven’t heard Andrew’s legal breakdown of this case and only listen to MSM, as usual. Their mentality is unsurprising, to say the least, and their words, so irritating. I began to listen to a few (legal) YTubers after the verdict, and was astounded at what they believe they know, and that the charges are exactly what they should’ve been. Compared to how Atty Andrew breaks everything down, they are a disgrace (I didn’t mention any names). Also, can’t Andrew just be cloned? We all need one of him in our back pockets. ‘m learning so much. Thank you Andrew.
That’s very kind of you.
Well, it looks like this is one of those 10% cases Andrew is always warning us about. When you get a combination of an incompetent judge and an illeterate jury with no morals or fortitude then these kidng of wrongful convictions happen.
To be fair to the jury, they may have made the correct decision, given what the judge instructed of them.
I personally haven’t been following this trial (I’ve been trying to catch up on the coverage Andrew gave for the Rittenhouse trial), so I can’t even say what I thought about the court proceedings (beyond the botched jury instruction) and so I can’t say, one way or the other, whether I would conclude that these men are indeed guilty.
Regardless, this case (and the Chauvin case, for that matter) is an example of how the judge is just as much a randomizer as anything else when a trial is brought before a jury.
I know prosecutors like to “throw the book” at some defendants but it seems as these 9 charges are somewhat redundant. We saw the same thing in the Chauvin trial. Is this the “shotgun” effect in charging, hoping at least something will stick or does this mostly only happen in high profile cases? Seems to me that if you’re found guilty of Murder 1, how can you also be guilty of felony murder and assault when only one person died? It’s like double jeopardy but all in one trial (I know that’s an over-simplification).
Normally the sentences are served concurrently, so they aren’t stacked into, say, five life sentences one served after the other. In effect the defendant ends up serving the length of time of the longest sentence given them, while the lesser sentences expire along the way. Of course he’re they’re looking at a bunch of life sentences, so it hardly matters, they’ll be sentenced to life.
One effect of the convictions on multiple counts, however, can be seen in any attempt to appeal–say, for example, an appellate court found reversible error in the jury instruction for agg assault with the shotgun. Well, because they were also convicted of agg assault with the pickup, they’re still on the hook for the agg assault and the resulting felony murder regardless of whether an appellate court reverses the shotgun assault conviction.
I saw something on Lexis about the sentence for all other charges merging into the most serious count.
I was thinking the same is true about the malice murder count for Travis. Even if the felony murder theories fail on appeal, Travis is still sunk on the malice murder count.
How can you get 5 murder charges when only 1 guy was killed one time?
See my comment above.
Does the judge’s failure to resolve the ambiguity in the citizen’s arrest law qualify as a reversible error?
The message seems to be, if someone is committing crimes against you, you have no right to do anything about it, and if you do, you will be the one convicted.
The law and facts don’t even really seem to matter. All that matters is the demands of the mob. The mob wanted a conviction, and threatened to cause problems if they didn’t get it. It doesn’t matter that a thug was committing crimes. It doesn’t matter that three people tried to stop him. All that seems to matter any more is the politics.
Given the pretrial jury pool being drawn from a mostly decided or those leaning guilty, it would have taken a 100 percent unambiguous law and perfect conduct to escape a lynching from this group. Indeed, from the pretrial information I looked at some of those counts are way over convicted, especially for Roddy. Whatever their possible guilt on some counts, it was a righteous mob lynching.
Arbery was intercepted because he was suspected, and confirmed to be, a repeat trespasser. Whatever his fear (driven by knowledge of wrong doing) he was the legal aggressor. He was not entrapped.
The conviction highly dubious, and certainty over charged.
This trial is very sad. They were guilty for being white when a black man died. Being black and running over fifty whites was not a crime. As Big O said, just a modern day lynching. There is a laundry list of lessons to be learned. Can I? Somebody has to put a stop to the vandalism. Yes, you can, but what are you willing to pay? Everything you have and the rest of your life? You can, but it would be better to just let it go. Buy more security cameras and lights. Should I? Att. Andrew Blanca says no, you should never defend property. The $2000 property items that disappeared are nothing compared to the cost of a murder trial. Let it go. Insure it and replace it, and secure it a little better. Must I? Are you or someone you care a lot about about to die or suffer great bodily harm? If not, you must not get involved. It never looks like self defense when you go to the problem. In self defense, the problem has to come to you. Arbery attacked Travis and I agree Travis had a right to defend himself. But not everyone has the IQ to figure that out. Travis should have said, “You know, Dad, this isn’t going to look good. Let’s go watch a movie”. Last but not least, Travis had the shotgun out. Arbery did not visible have a gun. Yes, somebody stole a gun from his pickup. Can you prove Arbery stole the gun? Even if Arbery had the gun on his person, you still can’t go with a gun out. “But Arbery probably had a gun”. Sounds reasonable to me, but is the DA and the jury going to buy that? Is the mob (BLM, Antifa, political leaders in power, and a Soros DA who needs to be reelected, going to buy that? Very sad. None deserved the guilty verdict. BLM, Antifa and Soros DA, they’re just getting started.
We should all listen to Andrew’s words of wisdom: Don’t risk deadly violence to protect mere property. Not somebody else’s. Not yours. It’s never worth it.
A society that demonizes its protectors shall have no protectors.
We have wolves, sheep and a few sheep dogs. The sheep are going after and locking up the sheep dogs in favor of the wolves. This will not work out well for the sheep.
Elderly beaten in broad daylight, women punched in the face on subway trains, woman raped while bystanders watched, countless videos of people being attacked, endless reports of gun violence in major cities. What does it take to wake people up?
In the days of trying to get a CCW permit law passed in Ohio, we realized that the sheep are afraid of any animal which has teeth and claws, i.e. weapons. They have difficulty telling the difference between the wolves that prey upon them and the sheep dogs that would protect them. Having sheep dogs hired by the government and clearly identified in uniform is of comfort to some of the sheep. But, there the MSM and social media have villainized the police so as to make many otherwise law abiding people afraid of or against the police. It is interesting that in the Rittenhouse case, the wolves had no problem identifying Kyle as not being one of them.
As for people waking up: I have educated friends who voted for Biden and are completely oblivious to the damage he and the Left are doing to our country. Their irrational hatred of Trump propels them. I doubt that they will ever associate the decline in the country with their voting for the Left.
If you ever wondered why you should spend money talking to a lawyer before you talk to the police following an act you knew was completely justified, watching this trial should convince you it could be the best money you ever spend. Greg McMichael was a retired cop and had worked for the local prosecutor. He knew the law; or at least, thought he did. He knew the police were his friends. He knew the prosecutor was a friend. He knew his actions were justified and he wouldn’t be prosecuted. And he was right–for seventy-one days. But after the media pressure, the decision to prosecute wasn’t left up to his friends. The only real evidence presented at trial against any of the three defendants was their own words: what they told police at the scene as recorded by LEO body cameras, and recorded statements they willingly made after agreeing to go to the police station. No Miranda Rights had been read. But both McMichaels had read them to other suspects themselves and Roddy Bryan knew them because . . . hell, everybody knows them. They knew they had the right to remain silent and willingly gave it up. And everything they said was used against them in a court of law–especially the quote about trapping Arbery “like a rat.” When the police arrived, had they simply said, “We intend to cooperate fully but choose to exercise our Constitutional right to remain silent until we have a lawyer present,” they could be sitting at home today. A lawyer wouldn’t have had to tell them to lie, only to use correct wording and emphasize the right points. Knowing the law may make it harder to convict you, but discussing events with a trained, experienced, dispassionate attorney will make it even harder.
On the evidence, I forgot the video Roddy Bryan took. That, too, was used against the defendants.