"If the offense is a felony"...Otherwise "A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge." The "offense" does not need to be a felony. One of the two cases I posted specifically addresses this issue as well. Not sure how it can be any more clear.
Appellate attorney in GA (link at bottom of post)
1. On offense committed in his presence or with his immediate knowledge:
"
Courts have held that these are synonymous."
2. On "the offense." DA Barnhill wrote this: "(GM, TM, and Roddy) were following, in 'hot pursuit,' a burglary suspect, with
solid first hand probable cause..."
None of the defendants have claimed to have seen AA on/in English's open construction site that day, or that they were alerted by a 3rd party (ies) witnessing AA on the site. Barnhill didn't claim that either.
Police report: GM said that "there had been several break-ins in the neighborhood, and further, the suspect was caught on surveillance video. (GM) said he saw the suspect from the break-ins 'hauling a-ss' (down the road)."
And, GM said
THEY saw the same suspect "the other night" (at English site, Feb 11) and
THEY saw him stick his hands down his pants, which led them to believe he might be armed."
- BTW, police incident reports for Feb 11 prove that GM never laid eyes on The Trespasser that night, and TM told 911 that he saw The Trespasser put his (singular) hand into a pocket. Not hands into pants, not hands into the waistband of his pants.
3. The "offense" according to Barnhill was burglary, a felony. He made that claim despite police reports on the incidents that described the incursions onto E's site captured on surveillance tapes as trespassing.
So, either DA Barnhill willfully misinterpreted the law on what constitutes a felony or, without an investigation, implicitly asserted that AA entered into E's property without permission
with the intent to commit a crime-burglary, a felony.
OR.
(And this is where Robert Lee Rash might enter the picture).
The "first hand probable cause" Barnhill referred to, specifically about
prior "break-ins" not the trespass on Feb 23, and specifically about burglary, might have been predicated on this narrative: that although English didn't make a report to LE, he did tell one or more person in the neighborhood of the theft of fishing gear worth more than $2k, and that the thief stole it while being on his property without permission. Burglary.
And, word spread, including to GM, TM, and Roddy. Enter LEO Robert Lee Rash, who clearly took a very intense interest in catching the unknown black man trespasser seen in the videos. As far as we know, anyway, Rash didn't canvass the neighborhood with a description of any of the other (white) trespassers caught on video. Just of the black male intruder.
Intentionally or not, explicitly or not, IMO Rash was definitely responsible for focusing (or reinforcing) the neighborhood's collective suspicions about crimes being committed (real or imaginary) on one individual - an unidentified black male, captured on surveillance video.
We know that Robert Lee and GM spoke about The Trespasser. What was said? What if Robert Lee told GM that he believed The Trespasser stole E's fishing gear and was probably responsible for other thefts and trespasses in the neighborhood? But that they needed to catch him in the act in order to nail him?
We know that Robert Lee (at the very least) had no problem passing along to English that GM was eager and willing to "help English" catch The Trespasser. .
So perhaps the "first hand probable cause" claim is based on GM saying he had seen the surveillance videos, heard that a trespasser had committed felony theft on E's property (burglary), been told by Rash that he believed the black male trespasser was the thief, and that LEO Robert Lee Rash had either encouraged GM to get E's permission to play cop on his property, or at the very least, hadn't dissuaded GM and had, as a LEO, passed along GM's offer of providing E with his ex-LE services on his behalf.
The Ahmaud Arbery Killing and Georgia Law
So sorry.
