defense wants to make it look like, is that this is a split-second decision, that travel was in fear for his life, and what she did a good job of doing was showing the totality of what led up to that, really undermines that idea. you know, and to jim s point about the idea of portraying him as a law enforcement background training with the coast guard, you know, i call that the best of both worlds defense, which is on the one hand they want the vigilante to be portrayed as doing things by the book. he is trying to de-escalate. but at the same time they want to say he was really a scared, frightened citizen in fear for his life the way any of you might be afraid. so they re trying to have the best of both worlds, and i think the prosecutor did a good job of undermining that point. i think also to carolyn s point about the portrayal of the victim that really racist remark that was made, one interesting comparison to the rittenhouse trial is what a difference it makes when you can call vi
someone who was an actual law enforcement officer with a badge and said based on what was known, there would have been no arrest by someone in uniform. so carolyn, that leads to other defense strategy, which includes going after the victim to some degree. i want to play one response to you. have a listen. laura hogue got up here and she gave you criminal defense 101. usually criminal defense 101 is no crime actually took place. now the crime s on video. my client didn t commit the crime. well, we have your client on the video committing a crime. criminal defense 101, step three. it s the victim s fault. standard, standard stuff. do you agree, carolyn, that that s where in effect the defense stands at this point, that she characterized that powerfully or impactfully rather
what we heard from the defense and their closing arguments yesterday, talking about how they made their decisions, what those decisions resulted in, laying all that out. so the big question of course will be was it effective once the jury does begin its deliberations? joining us to discuss, federal and white collar attorney carolyn policey. shan, as former prosecutor, as you re watching the way this unfolded, yes, it s what you want a prosecutor to do in a rebuttal, right? rebut what they have heard from the defense. but what else stood out to you in the way that lisa dunikoski laid this out? i thought she did a good job. she really tried to give the jury the high points they should focus on. and to me, what i came away with was this idea that the knowledge that the defendants had simply
0 there he goes. this is the white truck. he s still underneath here. here comes somebody to the truck. he s right there. here comes greg mcmichael-he comes around. he gets in. then mr. albenze starts walking down the street. truck pulls out. there goes his arm. there goes his arm. where is the truck? already pulled out. already pulled out and heading down the street. all right. should you trust the statements of travis mcmichael? well, let s go ahead and first take a look at this. he told you he s not going to chase or investigate someone who is armed, and yet all he talked about was, he kept reaching into his pants, kept reaching into his pocket. well, did you think he was armed or not? then what did he tell you? this is what i was thinking. mr. arbery may have run by. maybe matt had seen him. maybe he has broken in. maybe harry english is over at 220. i don t know. maybe ahmaud arbery was caught. maybe ahmaud arbery was trying to run from the police. these are all maybes. he doesn t