.A law professor seems to think differently :
The citizen’s arrest law that Ahmaud Arbery’s accused killers used in an attempt to justify their deadly violence could play an outsized role in their murder trial.
rnbcincy.com
Beyond being outdated, citizen’s arrests laws have
roots in early slave patrols of the late 1600s. Enacted in 1863, possibly as a response to the Emancipation Proclamation, Georgia’s law was created to capture enslaved people running away to join the Union Army. Opponents argue the laws enabled vigilante justice, targeting Black people.
Mercer law professor Tim Floyd
previously pointed to the law as being used by white lynch mobs as a justification for their actions. The McMichaels actions mirrored those of a lynch mob, chasing down the young man simply for daring to exist.
Often confused with stand your ground laws, or even traditional self-defense, citizen’s arrests have emboldened violent attacks on Black people.