The subtext of two prominent trials in recent weeks is vigilantism, the questionable notion that the institutions that we depend on – the police, especially – have declined into such impotence that ordinary citizens are called upon to maintain peace and order on their own.
In both trials, justice prevailed, that is, the juries returned the correct verdict. Last week in Brunswick, Georgia, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William Bryan were found guilty of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Video shows clearly that Arbery was cornered and harassed to the point of desperation. He must have felt that he was fighting for his life when Travis McMichael killed him with three shotgun blasts.
The two McMichaels and Bryan face life in prison. The system worked and vigilantism lost.
On the other hand, recently Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with murder after he killed two men and injured another during a night of unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse did plenty that was wrong: He should never have been in Kenosha, he shouldn’t have been carrying a deadly weapon and he shouldn’t have been out after curfew.
But once he was attacked, he put his AR-15 to the use for which it was intended: He defended himself. The jury agreed and he was acquitted. The system worked, but, unfortunately, vigilantism won.