In the motion, Gough challenged the prosecution’s assertion that Bryan “had no substantial ties to the community,” claiming that Bryan has lived in Glynn County “virtually his entire life.” Wow. That sort of misbehavior by the prosecutors ought to be sanctioned by the judge.
AJC reported that Kemp is willing to “take a look” at the “citizen’s arrest” law because of this case. Kemp: Election reform ‘front and center’ for 2021 AJC, 1/12/2021, p. A1
Why not "take a look" at the state's gun laws, too, since they used guns? There is nothing whatsoever in the state's citizen's arrest law that caused this criminal behavior. This is an AJC article from October. The lawmaker is Republican who is crowing about his thought crimes legislation from last year. https://www.ajc.com/politics/lawmak...tizens-arrest-law/D5UHIDVIMVDFJMR5ZHUM3NTGOQ/ “I view repeal of citizen’s arrest as the next step after passage of the historic hate-crimes act this year,” he said. “Having the legal authority for a person who is not trained in law enforcement to arrest that person and take that person before a judge is untenable in our current world.”
Same article: Marissa Dodson, a lobbyist with the Southern Center for Human Rights, said she’s unaware of an instance where someone invoked his or her right to conduct a citizen’s arrest and there wasn’t a tragic result. Well somebody put me in touch with Dodson. I have done it more than once, with no tragic results, and when I was a police officer I witnessed events where others did it and turned the person over to us, again without tragic results. Her experience in the world must be very limited. If the law is repealed, and you discover a criminal breaking into your car, or stealing your tv, you can't stop him. You can't chase him. You must call the police and hope for the best (or worst). State Rep. Bert Reeves, a Marietta Republican, said there were instances not included in Efstration’s proposal where detaining a suspect of a crime was necessary. For example, he said he did not want changes to the law to prevent someone who witnesses his or her car being burglarized or stolen from attempting to stop the offender from leaving. “What we’re trying to do is eliminate vigilantism of this insane scenario that happened in Brunswick and make it so that nobody under the color of the law can make that argument ever again," Reeves said. “But somewhere along the way we’ve got some commonsense (concern) which deals with our ability to defend our property.”
OCGA § 17-4-60 - Grounds for arrest A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion. That's it. You now have the entire law. I think, in spite of the early arguments of "who knows what Arbery was doing," which is not reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion of burglary, the facts as they have come out at this time show no grounds for arrest. This law did not cause the issue. The three criminals who decided for no reason a black man seen there must be a burglar caused the issue. We do not need to further separate and alienate law enforcement "special status" from the rest of us. That is a mistake.