It would seem -- it seems so to me but I only have a superficial understanding of this law -- that those who sought to detain Ahmaud Arbery had the right of law on their side. That is, if the first sentence is taken to refer to a misdemeanor infraction (since it is clear that the second sentence clearly refers to a felony infraction).The Georgia law reads: "The private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony, and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion."
This entire case hinged on the issue of whether the defendants did or did not have the *right* to pursue, stop and arrest Ahmaud Arbery. Obviously, the law reads as I have quoted it.
The argument of the prosecution was that those who pursued and attempted to detain Ahmaud Arbery did not have right of law on their side. So, by doing so they committed a whole group of illegal acts.
Ahmaud Arbery was in this view, and in this interpretation of the law, within his rights to resist the attempted arrest, and that when he tried to disarm the man, or fight against him, he was in his right to do so.
Therefore, everything these 3 men did was entirely illegal from the start.
My thoughts on this matter are that their conviction was not properly attained. That is to say that -- I assume for political, social reasons -- that the legal issue was not properly defined to the jury by the judge. And that is to say that the law, as it is written, does allow a citizen to pursue and arrest a suspect in a minor crime (misdemeanor).
So in the reading, or interpretation, of the law that was operative at the time, it is Arbery who was *ignorant of the law*, not those who pursued and tried to detain him. He was obligated (I assume) to stop and submit to the arrest since, again if this reading is correct, instead of trying to flee.
He very definitely did not have a right to attempt to resist, or attack, those who pursued him. (Though in most other states there is not a right to citizen's arrest. In Georgia that law was in effect).
If there is ambiguity in the law, jurisprudence refers to the the legal doctrine of lenity. When a criminal statute is ambiguous, "that ambiguity is always to be resolved in the favor of the defendant, never in the favor of the State. It is the government that drafted that statute and passed it into law, not the defendant. If they left in ambiguity, that’s on the government, not the defendant."
I wonder if this conviction, in whole or in part, will be overturned on appeal. It would seem they have a very good chance at it.