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Abandoned & Malignant Hearts: Life In Prison For Murdering Ahmaud Arbery
Travis McMichael took Arbery’s life with a shotgun, but the murder of Ahmaud started in the abandoned and malignant heart of Greg McMichael
“Lawyers and legal scholars have not gone out of their way to make the law accessible to the ordinary person” wrote Jay Feinman in the opening to his Law 101 book. “Just the opposite: Legal professionals, like the priests of some obscure religion, too often try to keep the law mysterious and inaccessible.”
But sometimes the law as written down and the pressing circumstances of the moment bring even the most ignorant of perspectives to clarity.
“A person commits the offense of murder when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being” is how the Georgia code defines what Travis McMichael was found guilty of and now is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for. “Express malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take the life of another human being which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof. Malice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and…
