A jury in Georgia has found all three defendants guilty of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
Travis McMichael, who fired the shots, was found guilty on all nine counts, including malice and felony murder.In Georgia the summations are done; the judge has charged the jury and the case is now in the hands of the jury.
I thought the prosecutor did a good job in laying things out while the defense, not so much.
I think of verdict of guilty is the right result. I might be OK with letting Roddie Bryan off hook because I honestly think he was acting stupidly and not maliciously. He saw his neighbors chasing someone, assumed they knew what they were doing, and foolishly decided to help.
But there is no excuse for what Travis and Gregory McMichael did. The citizens arrest excuse is surpassed in absurdity only by their self-defense claim.
It seemed to me that the defense was expecting to lose the jury trial and was setting their ducks up for an appeal.
Let's hope the verdict is guilty and then they can try their luck. I don't think they'll have any more success in the appeals court than they had with the trial judge.
There are currently 48,536,041 reported cases in the US and 786,247 deaths.
My grandson missed his shot again due to a slight fever. He's better and will go next Friday. My daughter got hers last Wednesday. My oldest daughter will get hers on December 3. My son-in-law will get his with my grandson.
Kyle Rittenhouse has been found not guilty on all counts. Honestly, that doesn't surprise me any. Unfortunately it sends the wrong sort of message about vigilantism.
There are two trials underway in parallel.
The first is in Kenosha Wisconsin where Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial for killing two people and wounding another. Rittenhouse was 17 at the time and went to Wisconsin with his trusty AR-15 to help protect property during BLM demonstrations over the killing of a black man by police.
The actions by Rittenhouse are all on video. The two men he killed and the one he wounded were all white. He is claiming self defense.
The question on the table is basically whether an armed person can shoot and kill unarmed people and still call it self defense.
There was also a weapons charge for a 17 year old carrying a dangerous weapon. However the statute in question was so ambiguous that the judge dismissed that charge over the objections of the prosecution.
I suspect that Rittenhouse is either going to be acquitted or convicted of a minor lessor charge. I certainly don't see a homicide conviction.
The judge in this case, Bruce Schroeder, has been making himself too much of an issue and is catching a lot of flak.
Meanwhile, down in Georgia, the three men charged with killing Ahmaud Arbery are being tried. In February of 2020 Arbery was jogging through the neighborhood when he was chased down by Gregory McMichael, an ex-police officer, his son Travis McMichael and a neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan.
The two McMichaels claimed they were trying to make a "citizens arrest" because they suspected Arbery of trespassing on an unfinished house in the area. Bryan claims he was just following to see what was going on. Bryan video taped the incident.
Travis McMichael had a shotgun and claims Arbery tried to take the gun away from him. That can be seen struggling over the gun. The struggle resulted in Arbery being shot and killed.
The big story here has been some of the strange interaction between Kevin Gough, lawyer for Roddie Bryan, and the judge. Gough complained about "black pastors," including Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, being in the gallery which Judge Timothy Walmsley called "reprehensible." There was also what the judge called clearly racist juror challenges at the start of the trial. The jury finally selected is all white except for one African American.
The judge in this case, in contrast to the Rittenhouse case, has been universally complimented on his professionalism.
I'm not sure where this one is going. It could go either way.
There are currently 47,906,315 reported cases in the US and 776,392 deaths.
There are currently 47,339,363 reported cases in the US and 768,694 deaths.
It took 13 Republicans to step up and do the right thing and the bill passed 228-206. Six "Democrats voted against the bill. Bet you can't guess which six? Never mind, of course you can guess. Anyway here they are.
I forgot to update this. Murphy now has a 65,000 vote lead. That comes out to 50.9%-48.3% which is still way below the 11 points that Monmouth had predicted.
Jack Ciattarelli says he won't concede until every vote has been counted. That's fair as long as he concedes. There's no way a recount makes much of a dent in 65,000 votes.
I said there would be more on this. Murphy has extended his lead to a little over 19,000 and the AP has projected him to win.
Personally, given the screwy nature of the vote counting in this election, I'm not assuming anything even though the outstanding votes appear to be mostly from Democratic areas.
Needless to say Ciattarelli hasn't conceded and I expect the whining to start any time now. Unless they're going to wait until a few more votes get counted.
The Democrats can't get their act together in Washington and the electorate gave them hell over it last night. Youngkin beat McAuliffe in Virginia and, as I feared, Murphy is in trouble in New Jersey as well.
The current numbers have Murphy up by about 14,000 votes with about 90% of the precincts reporting but the numbers have been flopping around so I don't even know how accurate that is.
I blame the moron so-called progressives in the House. They're holding an important infrastructure bill hostage for a social spending bill that's giving people heartburn. I'll grant that Manchin seems to keep flip flopping on the spending bill but the real problem has been the House progressives
More on the New Jersey results later.
There are currently 46,844,575 reported cases in the US and 760,335 deaths.
