“Nothing about the fact that they are lawyers and knowledgeable gave you the impression that you might be going the wrong direction?”
You can find 100 lawyers who DISAGREE with them for everyone who agrees. And no, I do not blindly believe ANY lawyer!
Their rationale was bad. I read a decision a few years ago that went at length about what was meant by immediate knowledge. The dudes didn’t have it. And they view the second sentence in the old Georgia law separately from the first while I think it FLOWS from the first. They didn’t have probably cause.
And the jury obviously agreed with my take.
I also object to taking a law from before the Civil War and trying to shoehorn it into giving people the right to grab guns, chase someone they merely SUSPECT and then threaten to kill him! DAMN STUPID, and they will have a lifetime in prison to regret their honest but STUPID, ILLEGAL action.
Look at the video -- VIEWER WARNING: Uncut video of confrontation, shooting of Ahmaud Arbery (News4JAX). If they'd wanted to kill him merely because of their knowledge of his trespass -- at night more than once captured on infra-red video -- and mere suspicion of theft, they could have done so well before the moment when the actual shooting took place. No firearm was even shown to Arbery until he was bearing down on Travis, running directly toward him when there was plenty of room on the other side.
Even if these guys had been evil (as evil as those who are now condemning them), they wouldn't have been stupid enough to shoot Arbery when he posed no threat to them. Where they went wrong, though, is in underestimating the stupidity, cowardice, and corruption of the people who would condemn them. They've been condemned as murderers, even though as Arbery ran by the right side of the truck, there was nobody blocking his way and the path to escape was open (DOESN'T THAT MATTER?) -- Travis had remained on the left side of the truck and had not fired, and neither had his father Greg (everything was fine so far) -- then Arbery irrationally and aggressively chose to turn sharply to the left, charge across in front of the truck, and attack Travis.
It's right there on the video, and yet a jury, backed by most of the country on both sides of the political spectrum, have concluded that these guys are guilty of murder. I can't come close to expressing the disgust I feel at that.
The Jury obviously noticed the horde of militants outside threatening to burn down the city if the "wrong" verdict happened. They then convinced themselves that doing what the mob wanted was the "right" decision.
I've seen this phenomena many times before. There is even a famous psychological experiment that demonstrates it.