Travis McMichael says in his murder trial that he felt threatened by Ahmaud Arbery

. . . the person who was "alleged" to have said it TESTIFIED HIMSELF THAT HE ****ING SAID IT! WTF?

 

So? Why should his testimony be used against him?
He volunteered it.
Let the evidence come from another witness.

Why should someone be punished for telling the truth?

 

Neither Rittenhouse nor Arbery were involved in a crime during these incidents. Except possible firearm possession/transportation violations by Rittenhouse.

 

Him saying "I totally said this" is not evidence that he said it? Thank you for saving me a lot of time. For a few pages now, I actually thought you were being serious. I can see now that I was mistaken and you are just taking us all for a ride.

 

That may not be entirely true.
It depends how exactly you define "involved".
We don't know for certain that Arbery was not casing the neighborhood.

I think you're trying to oversimplify things with words, when things are actually more complex.

 

Evidence for what purpose? So we will know, or evidence to convict him? I think there is a difference.

I suspect this entire trial might hinge on that one statement he says he made.

 

In the same way that we "don't know" that the McMichaels weren't secret neo-Nazis just looking for a chance to kill a black man and finally found one. See how easy "debate" is when you just make **** up without evidence? Ooo! Ooo! And the McMichaels were the ones behind all of the "recent crime" in the neighborhood because they were looking for a black guy to pin it on, right?

 

Both. Have you ever heard the whole, "Anything you say can and will be used against you . . . ?"

 

If someone comes forward and admits to carrying out a crime, and despite police searching for evidence of that crime, they are unable to find anything, should that person be punished?

 

Not likely. It hasn't really received much mention, comparatively speaking. No, the entire trial will hinge on the fact that they had no legal right to do what they did and Arbery did have a legal right to do what he did.

 

Words themselves can be a crime, and they can point to motives and states of mind in other crimes.

 

I don't think he should be found guilty based on a statement.

At least maybe not guilty of murder, though it might be an illegal threat.

 

No one has claimed he will/should be found guilty based on that statement alone. But people are found guilty based on a statement all of the time. Ever hear of bribery? Criminal threat? Terrorist threat? Perjury? Those are crimes based on statements.

 

But we are talking about a statement that has an indirect effect of taking away one's legal qualification to immunity by claiming self defense.

I'm okay if you want to view the statement itself as a crime, but to use that to change the circumstances of the rest of the scenario is something different.

 

Chasing him down in the first place already took care of that.

What he said to the man he was chasing down has nothing to do with his motive, his state of mind, or how the man he was chasing down would reasonably interpret the situation? Again, that's absolutely insane.

 

I disagree. I think they had a right to follow him (at least from a little distance) and then give chase when he started running.

 

If they had only followed him, you might have a point. They didn't just follow him. I'm starting to think you haven't looked into any facts of this case at all.

 

It's not WHEN YOU ARE BEING ATTACKED. But when you are doing the attacking? Yes.

 

I'm predicting another semantic argument coming. We're about to hear how we shouldn't use words like "attack."

 

Between the point of them following him and him being shot, what exactly do you think it is they did that would justify Arbery attacking one of them and them not having the right to respond in kind?

But I don't believe they were "attacking" up until that point.

That seems to be just another vague poorly defined word.

 

Chasing him down, using a vehicle to try to run him off the road, and blocking his path. Plus, you know, threatening to kill him if he didn't stop. Yeah, that's a thing, as much as you want to play make-believe it didn't happen.

 

Well, more than half of the arguments I am hearing in this thread do tend to be based on semantics.

Vaguely defined words that overgeneralize what happened.

 

You are the only one here playing semantics.

 

You mean cut him off to try to slow him down.

 

Not slow him down. Stop him (that's called an arrest, btw). And even trying to forcefully "slow him down" is 1) illegal and 2) more than just following him.