After the choices
I realize trial lawyers do what they have to do in the adversarial system, but…all the same. I recoiled last night when I saw the clip via Maddow.
The defense attorneys for Gregory and Travis McMichael, who are charged with Arbery’s murder, repeatedly have tried to present Arbery as a criminal. On Monday, Laura Hogue, one of Gregory McMichael’s lawyers, went further.
“Turning Ahmaud Arbery into a victim after the choices that he made does not reflect the reality of what brought Ahmaud Arbery to Satilla Shores in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails,” Hogue told jurors.
ExCUSE me? He went running! Like millions of other people! And those last three words are just…
In that moment, Hogue took the opportunity to portray Arbery as a “runaway slave,” said Charles Coleman Jr., a civil rights attorney and former prosecutor.
“Her word choice was intentional, her descriptions were unnecessary. And the description ultimately is inflammatory,” Coleman told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”
It was an “attempt to sort of really trigger some of the racial tropes and stereotypes that may be deeply embedded in the psyche of some of the jurors,” Coleman told Brown.
I don’t know, I would think there are subtler and less hair stand on end-ing ways to do that.
I am assured that the United States is not a racist country, though, so this can’t really have happened. I am certain that Andy Ngo would happily fabricate proof that Arbery was a supporter of BLM sent to entrap those white men into shooting him.
I think it’s a leap to get to “runway slave”. Definitely trying to make the jurors less sympathetic to Arbery. Disgusting and likely to backfire.
I’m very concerned about this case. Arbery grabbed at the gun, which might make self defense legal. I’m hopeful they’ll see it as the idiot had his 2 idiot friends there so he can’t really say there was a high level of danger from one person, Arbery, so shooting was not justified self defense.
I don’t think “runaway slave” is a leap at all – I think it’s what it was meant to be, a jolting sick-making reminder. He doesn’t have to have meant that that’s what Hogue was thinking, because the point is that that’s how the slave-owning class and its official assistants have always talked about black people.
And honestly if we’re going to talk about leaps isn’t Hogue’s leap all the leap we need? Why both-sides it with a snipe about what a civil rights attorney said to a CNN host?
Michael Haubrich @#1
I think you’re thinking of James O’Keefe, not Andy Ngo.
“Turning Ahmaud Arbery into a victim…” — Shooting him dead did this some time ago. Anyone who saw the video of the McMichaels hunting Arbery down and ultimately killing him shouldn’t be confused as to who the victim was. Let’s hope the jury isn’t as stupid as Hogue is treating them.