intentional. and like i said now on today with the summations that we heard from both of the other defendants and their attorneys, we now know that what they are trying to do essentially is to answer a call, put out a call for the opposite. so you have 100 black pastors who show up in support of this family in order to console them, in order to comfort them, and in order to advocate for justice. what it sounds like to me is that he is putting out a call, a not so veiled call for the opposite to show up and try to balance the scales in a way that could potentially influence this trial, either directly in front of the jury in a way that somehow gets to them and changes the scope of the environment or, as you said, potentially to the judge in which case he becomes concerned about the environment and is potentially willing to grant a mistrial. charles f. coleman jr., a former prosecutor in brooklyn, new york, district attorney s office. mr. coleman, it s a real pleasure to have you with
runaway slave and how she chose to characterize ahmaud arbery in that moment. and for the life of me, i can t understand why that may be, but the only answer i have is that when you re an attorney, you re trying cases, you have to know your audience. so something about that venue, something about that forum, something about that jury has given her the inkling that she may be able to trigger something latent, some sense of bigotry or racism somewhere in that courtroom that is going to be to her client s advantage, but what i saw in that moment, like so many others was reprehensible, and it is unquestionable that in that moment, what she tried to do was characterize ahmaud arbery as if he were some runaway. and as if her client and the other two defendants were part of a slave patrol intended to track him down and bring him in. and i find that to be extremely problematic, i have no idea why she would have engaged that other than she feels like it is going to resonate with the jury
what it sounds like to me is that he is putting out a call, a not so veiled call for the opposite to show up and try to balance the scales in a way that could potentially influence this trial, either directly in front of the jury in a way that somehow gets to them and changes the scope of the environment or, as you said, potentially to the judge in which case he becomes concerned about the environment and is potentially willing to grant a mistrial. charles f. coleman jr., a former prosecutor in brooklyn, new york district attorney s office. mr. coleman, it s a real pleasure to have you with us tonight as this jury gets the case tomorrow. the spotlight s going to be all the more intense. it s really helpful to have your clarity tonight. thank you. thanks, rachel. all right. we ll be right back. stay with us. ith us feel stuck and need a loan? move to sofi and feel what it s like to get your money right.
mob. this is a literal mob. people out there with fully automatic weapons, machine guns in the streets? really? a literal mob? today that defense attorney again demanded a mistrial. nearly every time black people have been inside that courtroom or outside that courtroom supporting the arbery family the defense counsel has denounced it as intimidating and grounds for a mistrial. the judge has denied those requests repeatedly. but why has he kept trying nearly every single day? why has his language in making those mistrial demands every single day become more and more racially provocative? what is the end game here? joining us now is charles f. coleman jr. he s a former brooklyn, new york prosecutor. now a civil rights attorney. he s been watching this trial very closely. mr. coleman, thank you very much for being here. thanks for having me, rachel. so i am not a lawyer. i ve just been watching this as a layman along with everybody else in the country. and the first day that the
maybe that s because mr. arbery doesn t want help. turning ahmaud arbery into a victim after the choices that he made does not reflect the reality of what brought ahmaud arbery to satilla shores in his khaki shorts, with no socks to cover his long dirty toenails. joining me now is civil rights attorney, former new york prosecutor charles f. coleman jr. charles, i want to talk to you about what we re going to see today in the rebuttal, but, first, i have to ask you about what we heard from that defense attorney there, the long dirty toenails, because i know for you, it was evocative of some very specific and painful imagery. absolutely right. what we saw was racism used as a legal strategy. what we saw in that moment was george mcmichael s attorney deciding to evoke images of a