Think the best way to characterize the Arbery murder trial will be “letter of the law vs spirit of the law.”

The prosecution will be arguing the letter, that nothing the victim did that day constituted a crime, that even if it had the accused had no way of knowing and said as much during questioning immediately after the shooting, and so the state’s “citizen’s arrest” law did not apply. And that their actions, even if you assume they had no intent to harm/kill, were still so reckless as to meet the legal criteria for manslaughter.

By contrast, the defense is gonna argue the spirit, trying to bring in “evidence” that there had been a rash of “crimes” in the neighborhood. They’ll bring in the property-owner to say that his future home had been “burglarized” and that he’d caught Arbery on video the day of the shooting. The theft of a gun from the McMichael’s unlocked truck will be another example offered, even though there’s no evidence whatsoever that Ahmaud was involved. Both men will then say on the stand that they’d never seen Arbery before and didn’t recognize him, thus making his presence in the neighborhood “suspicious.” So you got a rash of unreported “burglaries” going on with a black “suspect,” enough (in the defense’s estimation) to justify a “citizen’s arrest.”