Making Sausage

 Well, let's see: The main defense for the two men charged in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery is a citizen's arrest statute that dates back to the Civil War. Yes. "That" Civil War. The one that took place more than one hundred fifty years ago. The one that was fought between the slave-holding states in the South and the relatively free states of the North. Ahmaud Arbery was killed by two white men. Ahmaud Arbery was black. 

Did I mention that the murder and its subsequent trial is taking place in Georgia? 

Okay, I understand that there are plenty of laws and statutes that have stood the test of time. One hundred fifty years hasn't done a lot to tarnish the efficacy of a rule against parking in front of a fire hydrant. Or killing an unarmed jogger. With a shotgun after chasing him down with your pickup truck. And everyone deserves the right to a fair and speedy trial, adjudicated by a jury of one's peers. And I suppose that a defense of some sort needs to be mounted on behalf of the "suspects" who can be seen on a video recorded at the moment of the killing. Murdering Ahmaud Arbery. 

So the lawyers, in this case, are just doing their job. No matter how heinous or uncomfortable it seems. It should also be noted that the law that made the "citizen's arrest" legal was struck down by Georgia state lawmakers back in May. May of 2021. Which means that this vestige of the Civil War lingered on just long enough to make a defense for the father and son pair of murderers. 

But you're probably able to shut out this bit of legal wrangling by shoving it into a pile that says, "Yeah, but that's down there."

How about something a little further north? Wisconsin is pretty far north. You might remember the riots that blew in after Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer. Jacob is black. The officer was white. During one of the protests, a youth chose to take up arms to "defend the businesses in the area." During this charged situation, the young man who is white shot and killed two protesters, and injured another. In the trial of "accused" killer of these two men, a judge has decreed that the dead men cannot be referred to during the trial as "victims." They can, by contrast, be referred to as "rioters" or "looters." Young gun enthusiast and killer Kyle Rittenhouse has a legal team that got their client this semantic gift after Kenosha's Judge Bruce E. Schroeder ruled that the word "victim" is a "loaded" term. As loaded as the assault rifle Kyle Rittenhouse used to kill  Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wound Gaige Grosskreutz?

I was going to say something about how the jury is still out on that one, but now I'm just tired of the whole mess.