went down every single case. what could have happened, what should not have happened. what s your impression of that closing argument? it was from a professional point of view, a real pleasure to watch. because as you say, she told the jury what the evidence meant, put it all in context, and did it in a way that was very consistent. she provided a compelling case for them going methodically through each of the arguments that the defendants had made and pointing out the flaws. starting with this really important notion that at the time that mr. arbery was killed, no one ever said we were in the process of making a citizen s arrest. that lended a lot of weight to her argument that this was just a fabrication, an effort to come up with a defense down the road when they realized that they were about to be in a lot of trouble. so it s important to understand that the citizen s arrest and the self-defense argument work
of georgia and the state legislature, but it s still attempting to be applied in this case. that s a big part of this. also the self-defense argument as well. we re waiting to find out when we might hear from the jury. everyone on pins and needles. and joyce, i was struck yesterday in the prosecution s rebuttal final when she made a very strong point to underline that 9-1-1 call. that call, what is your emergency? and the response was there s a black man running. it says so much. and joyce, i m wondering what do you make of this, the call today to review the videos from the evidence but also to see them each three times and then to hear that one snippet of that 9-1-1 call? well, there s a lot of lore that prosecutors have about juries trying to read the signs during deliberations. but something that generally
no prosecutor ever believes they re going to win until that verdict comes back. so i was hopeful based on the evidence that we presented in the case that we put forth that the jury would see the truth of what actually took place and bring justice for the arbery family. and one of the most memorable moments of this trial was your step by step dismantling of the self-defense argument which was just a key part of all of this. were you aware at the time just how well that argument was going? or were you just trying to get through, you know, the case that with you were trying to make to the jury? a cross-examination is a fluid thing. and i wanted to make sure that the jury understood that the self-defense case was absolute garbage, that is not what took place and i was doing my best in the moment to dismantle it as you said. and i hoped to achieve that and when you re doing it, you never
done. talk about this point she s making as it relates to the prosecution and how they addressed race. we saw in closing arguments, the prosecutor did bring race into it. she talked about how this was the shooting and killing of a black man. but as noted, it was not a central focus of the case over the last several weeks here. talk about how that might have played into the strategy and the evaluation in the case. absolutely. just in case there was that one person uncomfortable bringing race into this, that could have affected how they were going to examine citizens arrests. how they were going to examine the reasonableness necessary for a self-defense argument to be justifiable under the law. how they were going to analyze malice aforethought or look at the intent. but i think the issue here was the prosecution didn t want to bring in race because of those reasons. but she had to when some of the undertones were brought up in
sued. kyle rittenhouse would go onto the witness stand and tell his story. apparently the defense had to different jury testing. and in one presentation, they presented the self-defense argument without him testifying. but, in the argument with him testifying. the jury was more sympathetic to what he said and they believed in the self-defense which ultimately is what happened right there. it s interesting and legal experts say that the defense or rather the prosecution presented an overtly complex case and ultimately overcharged him because once they said okay, there is a reasonable doubt on these two murder one charges, they said if that s a line too far what about the others and perhaps that s what they went with. ainsley: bottom line was he was acquitted. you are innocent until proven guilty. and that is the system.