be back friday as well. verdict watch will continue. you have nine charges for the defendants it s going to be up to the jury to assign degrees guilt. interesting on the roddie bryant, the rebuttal went out of their way to single him out and talk about exactly what we re talking about here, his level of culpability by just being there on the scene. and this charge of false imprisonment. you had roddie bryant in the pickup truck. and that is what kept arbery in that street, where he went up and down that street four times. and the prosecutor making that point time and time again that there were any number of alternatives that the defendants could have taken. and now, we have what is this ongoing strategy by the defense to keep asking for the mistrials. yesterday, as the court adjourned, the defense was asking for a mistrial on the quote-unquote protests. it caused the defense attorneys to cry foul and ask for a
don t fit the elements of citizen s arrest. so, it s interesting, it s almost much like their clients think their above the law. the defense attorneys are ignoring the law. and then, of course, there was the highly despicable comments about the long, dirty toenails of ahmaud arbery s appearance. to me, stephanie, there s a real concern there beyond the racist idea about that. the idea that the attorney would make a risky comment to the jury. that means she knows this jury and that this jury will probably be this will resonate with this jury. that s what s scary to me, is that in a regular courtroom, this could change the verdict but in this courtroom, change things can happen. that is such an important insight. i want to dip back in. the defense is now trying to argue requesting a mistrial. by the state, so there s no way we can fix it.
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
he takes out a warrant and arrests her later. that answers that question that the defense brought up. law on citizen s arrest, if the observer fails to make the arrest immediately after the commission of the og fence or during escape in the case of felony, his power to do so is extinguished, okay? so, you re in the store. and a woman is shoplifting. and you go to do a citizen s arrest, you have to do it right then and there. she comes back in the store four days later, you can t arrest her. you can t do a citizen s arrest four days later. if you fail to make that arrest immediately after the commission of the offense, you have no power to do a citizen s arrest. in other words, i mean, this is what we re talking about, we re talking about an emergency
implemented by a citizen and whether that the crime and/or felony had to be committed within the direct presence or sometime thereafter. really, that s all the defense has their hat to hang on in this trial if they don t get the benefit of the citizens arrest law, their whole case goes down the drain because then they don t get to argue self-defense. the defense honed in on the key parts but the prosecutor did a great job rebutting it. in terms of the self-defense claim, she made it clear you can t claim self-defense if you re the one who started it. did she make that point effectively today? i think she did. i think she s done a really good job with using the totality of the circumstances, because sometimes you want to really break it down moment by moment to show that a split-second decision actually was something much longer, and that s what the