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philip964 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:53 pm https://www.click2houston.com/news/nati ... sentences/

Two life without parole. Guy filming, life with possibility of parole.

Lesson here. Call the police.

And the actual sentence shows a major problem with our judicial system.The actual sentence was life without parole plus 20 years. How do they expect anyone to serve more than their life in jail? Keep the cadaver in the cell for twenty years before the funeral?

Paladin wrote: ↑Tue May 11, 2021 8:10 am Some info on Texas law, pertinent to citizens and security officers:

If you detain a suspect in an incident, it may be considered that you have placed him under citizen’s arrest.

This can only be done if it’s quickly followed up by a call to the police with the intention to remand this person into police custody.

Arrest

An arrest is defined by article 15.22 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and states that: A person is arrested when he has been actually placed under restraint or taken into custody by an officer or person executing a warrant of arrest, or by an officer or person arresting without a warrant.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines arrest as: “To deprive a person of his liberty by legal authority.”

In simple terms an arrest is a form of lawful control by one person over the actions of another.

An arrest, in Texas law, is “The apprehension or detention of another in order that he may be forthcoming to answer for an alleged or supposed crime.“
An arrest may be made by a peace officer or a private citizen.
To deprive someone of their liberty or freedom of movement may be viewed as an arrest.

For an arrest to be lawful, acceptable and without immediate liability, it must result in the legal apprehension or detention of a person.

It must be done with the intention of presenting the person to a magistrate to answer for an illegal crime.
For an arrest to be lawful, acceptable and without immediate liability, it must result in the legal apprehension or detention of a person.
It must be done with the intention of presenting the person to a magistrate to answer for an illegal crime.

IF YOU, BY COMMUNICATION OR OTHER MEANS, MAKE A PERSON FEEL THAT THEY ARE NOT FREE TO GO, THEN YOU HAVE ARRESTED THEM.

CCP Chapter 14

CCP (14.01a) allows any person to make an arrest without a warrant under certain circumstances.

Including:

(1)When a felony is committed within the view of the person making the arrest.

(2)When an immediate breach of the peace is committed within the view of the person making the arrest.

(3)Preventing consequences of theft.

Detainment – Arrest

Security officers are not obligated or required to make an arrest!

Officer’s Responsibility

You may be right at the scene when a violation occurs, but you do not have to make an arrest.

I just wanted to clarify a few points in this. I am unaware of any section of law that specifies what an arrest is in Texas. The definition given is not valid because there is a clear difference between an arrest and a detention, though the line is very blurry when reading SCOTUS decisions. An arrest is clearly stopping a person from leaving but sometimes that is just an investigatory detention and not an arrest. There may be Texas court cases that have established a better definition than the one given by Paladin but I have not kept up with it very much. I know that SCOTUS has said even handcuffing a person or pulling a gun on them does not necessarily make it an arrest instead of a detention. The only really clear line I remember from my training is that it is an arrest if you transport them away from the scene of the detention. This is really a confusing area of the law and I am not sure of how it would differ from a police officer for any non-sworn citizen.

I am unaware of any law requiring you to immediately notify a police officer if you make a citizen's arrest of a suspect. But the question does come up of what you will do with them if you don't call a cop. As a matter of fact, Article 14.06 of the Code of Criminal Procedure says the person making the arrest or the person having custody of the arrested subject must take them to a magistrate within 48 hours. The part about the person having custody allows you to turn the subject over to a police officer or allows the police officer to turn the subject over to jail staff and allow them to get him magistrated. But under the law, you could make the arrest and take them to a magistrate yourself if you wanted. Do you know how to do that? Realistically you are going to call a police officer, but if the officer declines to charge or take custody, you do have options.

I also wanted to clarify your authority for arrest. It is actually in three articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Article 14.01(a) says any peace officer OR OTHER PERSON (my emphasis) may arrest without a warrant for any felony or offense against the public peace committed within their presence or view. Article 15.01 says that any officer or any person specifically named in the warrant can make the arrest. I have never heard of an arrest warrant naming someone other than a police officer but it could happen. I could see a parole or probation officer being named to arrest one of their subjects. The only real trick to 14.01(a) is knowing which crimes are covered. If you are not aware of what is an offense against the public peace, you could make a serious mistake. Mistakes when making an arrest can make you a felon.

The third arrest authority is found in Article 18.16. This is the arrest to prevent the consequences of theft. There is a real trick to this one and it can bite cops and others just the same. To use this one, you must arrest a person who actually has stolen property on him. The law says that any person has the right to prevent the consequences of a theft by seizing stolen property and taking it with the person that had it to a magistrate or to a police officer for that purpose. But this means you must be right that the person has stolen property on them or you are committing a crime yourself.

So, in Texas, my advice if you have to arrest someone is to keep them proned out on the ground, not to approach them, and to call the police immediately. Be prepared for an officer to refuse to book them and don't take it personally. You will have at least protected yourself.

AndyC wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2020 1:34 pm1. Did the McMichaels foresee a potential for shooting in that incident? I'm sure they did, otherwise why would they be armed. Q.E.D.

2. Following onto the above conclusion - that they were aware they might have to use a firearm in this incident - would it be reasonable for someone to have to shoot someone for an alleged offense (and a minor one) that they didn't even witness? I don't think so.

I believe their excuse for being armed is that they had connected Arbery to the burglary of a vehicle where a weapon was taken. In the other video, they also said they could see him reaching into his pants as if for a weapon. That is, IMO, a reasonable justification for being armed when you go to arrest him. I am not saying that the arrest was reasonable, just the justification for being armed.

I am fairly sure the court would agree with that and then look at if the arrest itself was reasonable. If it was, then they might walk on all charges. If the court says the arrest itself was not reasonable, then having firearms could not be reasonable either and murder during the commission of a felony would probably be the right charge.

Without analyzing the case any further (since we all have pretty much made up our minds on that), I will say that this might be the same mistake made in a few other recent cases. Murder during the commission of a felony may be a hard case to make for any jury in Georgia that is not in downtown Atlanta. The more rural, the harder that would be. A jury that might go for manslaughter might not go for murder.

Of course, I also thought the Dalals officer who shot the man in his apartment was overcharged the same way. Then she testified in court and convicted herself. I think this case may be as ripe for stupid testimony as that one.

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 9:20 pmSometimes, the law is not moral.

I know this does not belong in this thread particularly, but I have to agree with this. Sometimes, the law is not only not moral, but actually immoral and must be resisted.

One of the hardest lessons I have learned in my life in law enforcement is that the law is not moral or immoral, not just or injust, not right or wrong, it is just the law. And that all courts are truly interested in, especially at the trial level, is the law. I do not want to side track this thread too far, but I will say that there is a lot of discussion in the police forums on whether police officers should enforce the law or do what is right.

philip964 wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 1:47 pmTo me it gets down to the number of shots from the shotgun. It is a lot like the guy in Florida. There is a large separation in age. He is pushed down, for being the Handicapped parking monitor and dissing a guys wife. On the ground, he draws his gun. The man backs off seeing the gun, and he fires once anyway killing the guy. He is in jail for the rest of his life.

Here the man goes for the shotgun. Is he shot struggling for the gun? Maybe. If that was the only shot. I see a not guilty. But there were two shots fired. Was he holding on for both and it was a two barrel shotgun or semiautomatic? Likely he was not holding on for the second. Was the shooter's life in danger after the first blast to the chest by the shotgun? Probably not. Guilty of murder. Other situation he grabs for the gun and lets go and backs off. The shooter then hits him twice with a shotgun. Guilty of murder. Lets say it is a pump action shotgun. Much worse for the shooter to get a not guilty. He had to pump the shotgun for a second shot. Plenty of time to see that the guy probably has a fatal wound in the chest from the first blast. Remember 98% of shotgun wounds are fatal. But he pumps and shoots again. Guilty of murder.

The son in the pick up truck. First one non fatal wound to the hand. Most likely he will say he fired when he saw his his father in danger. Not guilty. Now conspiracy to commit murder? I can see a good prosecutor making a case for this, especially if the Father has already been found guilty of murder. Guilty.

Right now thats how I see it but I have not closely watched the video to see if it shows the fatal shots. I have seen a blow up where Ahmaud has his hands on the shooters shotgun.

I have been very puzzled by the shots fired myself. I want to know more about the type of shotgun just so I can better understand the mechanics of the shooting. I find it hard to believe it was anything other than a semi-auto shotgun to get two shots off during the struggle. The flip side of that is that it almost guarantees multiple shots while the struggle is going on (especially with poor trigger discipline). I am very curious about the third would and it it is really a separate shot or is it maybe separated pellets or even the casing cut his hand from the ejected shell or a pinch type wound of some type. I have not seen it explained yet, and we probably won't until an autopsy report is released.

I think the whole think still comes down to what was known at the time of the incident by the McMichaels. Did they really have reason to believe he was stealing something? Did they really know he was a burglar involved in other burglaries in the area? The third part I posted in my original post on this was if Arbery had really attacked them when they tried to stop him, but I think that is a given now.

And I 100% agree that this is why you don't act like a Batman. I think that on this board, there is very little controversy over if they should have taken any direct action like this. I do not recall (though I might have missed it) anyone saying they acted in a correct fashion to be emulated. The discussion is all over whether they acted legally or not. It is interesting how experts that I generally regard highly are disagreeing on this point. I will introduce a slightly different point of view here now. I think that if they can prove in court that they knew Arbery was a burglar and they had a reasonable belief that he had just committed another crime, they could convince a jury to let them go. That is not to say it would actually be legal, but it is what will really count in the end. Will a jury convict them after they see all of the evidence?

RottenApple wrote: ↑Thu May 14, 2020 12:09 pmSecond, I absolutely agree with you that what the McMichaels did wasn't prudent or smart. It was down right foolish in the extreme. But, as far as I can tell, wasn't criminal. If the McMichaels have a competent attorney, without any additional evidence or plea deal, I don't see how the prosecution can possibly win this.

This has been one of the problems I have had when talking to people. Most want to judge the McMichaels based on what they "should" have done, not based on the law. I do not know Georgia law well enough to say that they were 100% legal, but from what has been posted on Georgia law, it appears to me so far that they probably are.

03Lightningrocks wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 1:06 pmYeah, you keep reposting and saying that but aparently you are severely misinterpreting the laws on this. First, they did not see him doing anything wrong and had no first hand info that he had just done anything wrong. Suspicion of wrong doing does not qualify.

Speaking of reposting things and not listening to the other side, isn't that what you just did. First, no matter what he did get seen doing something wrong. When he entered the house it was without permission and constitutes trespassing. That is a crime and he was seen doing it. I am not sure I agree with the person in the video I posted a link too, but the video from inside the house shows him looking around which could indicate planning to steal something. I am not sure if I agree with the logic of him committing a burglary, though it is worded that way in Texas also (entering a property without permission with the intent to commit a theft). But if correct, burglary is a felony in both Texas and Georgia. And Georgia law apparently does allow them to chase him down for mere suspicion of a felony.

What we all need to do is call for a thorough unbiased investigation and wait until we get all of the facts from it before we jump to a conclusion. I don't know if Arbery was a burglar or not. I don't know if the McMichaels were murderers or not. I want to see a full and proper investigation that releases the facts.

Of course, i have no faith whatsoever of the media ever presenting the unbiased facts.

This is an update that may have some interesting information.

jayinsat wrote: ↑Fri May 08, 2020 12:56 pmI’m sorry, where is the story of anyone chasing down and killing the McMichaels? They weren’t even arrested until yesterday...2 months later. How is demanding an arrest and investigation a lynch mob?

“Edited for clarity”

Demanding an arrest is the chasing and lyching. Why not just demand an investigation? What happens if the investigation reveals that they acted legally? I have no problem with people asking for an investigation of anything they feel needs to be investigated, but demanding an arrest is making a judgement on where the investigation should go and what should happen afterwards. Any investigation that sets out to prove a specific side of the story is just as bad as any lynching and is an affront to justice.

How are you going to feel now that they have been arrested after only 36 hours of time investigating the incident when it turns out they were telling the truth the whole time? This is the point I agreed with oldjames3 on.

Isn't is amazing how many people will condemn the mainstream media for their reporting on some subjects and then rush to judgment based on their reporting something else?

oljames3 wrote: ↑Fri May 08, 2020 10:05 amNo, the "modern day lynch mob" is folks rushing to judgement without sufficient evidence. While I think the actions of the McMichael father and son were ill advised and dangerous, we must understand that GA law is different from Texas law. We must wait for the GA system to assign blame or we risk being the lynch mob.

And that is on not just this case, but a lot of cases in the media lately.

I see no evidence of racial stereotyping in the story. I did see that the story was written with a bias and used words with specific connotations though.

This whole story and crime or not will depend on who is telling the truth. Did the two white men who stopped the black jogger actually see him at the construction site stealing anything? Did they recognize him from other break-ins? Did he start to fight with them when they stopped him? If all three of those are yesses, then the shooting was justified, IMO. Depending which ones are not true the shooting become a gray area. If all three are not true, then the shooting becomes a murder, and in Texas maybe a capital murder committed during a kidnapping.

My answers are of course based on my interpretation of Texas law. I am not familiar enough with Georgia law to have an answer for where the case really occurred.