When Is a Killing Not a Crime?

Some things about the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, and the motives of his shooter, remain unclear, but this much is not in question: two white men, one armed with a shotgun, went in pursuit of a black man who was jogging. There was some type of interaction, and then Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery. (McMichael and his father, Greg, later told police they suspected Arbery of some break-ins in the neighborhood.) Local prosecutors didn’t see the shooting as a crime, and did not arrest the men for more than two months, until after a national outcry. To understand the laws and the mind-set behind the prosecutors’ decisions, The New Yorker’sJelani Cobb spoke with Ira P. Robbins, a professor at American University’s Washington School of Law, and the co-director of its Criminal Justice Practice and Policy Institute. Behind McMichael’s decision to pull the trigger, Robbins sees a tragic confusion of laws governing citizens arrest and the ‘stand your ground’ doctrine in Georgia, as well as conscious or unconscious racial profiling.