1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 JUDY WOODRUFF: One of three men on trial for fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, who was Black, 2 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:07,680 took the stand today in his own defense. 3 00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:12,680 Travis McMichael, who is white, testified a day after the prosecution rested in a 4 00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:17,600 murder trial that is racially charged and is being closely watched around the country. 5 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:18,960 William Brangham has the latest. 6 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:23,960 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: McMichael is being charged with murder and other crimes, along with two other men. 7 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:29,720 The accused say they were attempting a citizen's arrest on Arbery, suspecting him of robbing a 8 00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:35,720 nearby house. Prosecutors allege the men illegally chased down and killed Arbery. 9 00:00:36,080 --> 00:00:39,680 On the stand today, McMichael described the moment he shot Arbery, 10 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:41,760 claiming it was done in self-defense: 11 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:43,938 TRAVIS MCMICHAEL, Defendant: I shot him. 12 00:00:43,938 --> 00:00:45,120 JASON SHEFFIELD, Attorney For Travis McMichael: Why? 13 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:50,120 TRAVIS MCMICHAEL: He had my gun. He struck me. It was obvious that he was -- 14 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:56,840 it was obvious that he was attacking me, that if he would have gotten the shotgun from me, 15 00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,080 then it was -- this is a life-or-death situation. 16 00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:04,000 And I'm going to have to stop him from doing this. So I shot. 17 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:09,000 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We should say the prosecution has disputed that characterization of the events. 18 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:12,960 Joining me now is Margaret Coker. She's editor in chief of The Current, 19 00:01:12,960 --> 00:01:17,040 which is a nonprofit nonpartisan news organization in Southeastern 20 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:21,920 Georgia. She has been covering the trial in Brunswick since it started last month. 21 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,320 Margaret Coker, great to have you on the "NewsHour." 22 00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:29,200 So, we just heard there from Travis McMichael. Can you tell us a little bit more about what he 23 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:33,520 is claiming on the witness stand that happened in this fatal moment? 24 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:35,440 MARGARET COKER, Editor in Chief, The Current: Yes. 25 00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:39,760 Travis McMichael is, of course, the younger of the two McMichaels. He and 26 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:43,520 his father are the co-defendants, along with neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan. 27 00:01:44,960 --> 00:01:49,440 The actions that they took that day are now under the microscope. 28 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:52,960 Travis McMichael has always within straightforward, saying that he killed 29 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:57,960 Ahmaud Arbery. The jury is going to decide that was murder or whether that was self-defense. 30 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,800 And Travis McMichael took the stand today to try, as he said, put things in his own 31 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:07,280 words and his own context, what was going through his mind when he decided to grab 32 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:12,080 his gun along with his father and chase Ahmaud Arbery through their mostly white 33 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:16,640 neighborhood on the outskirts of Brunswick in this small corner of Southeast Georgia. 34 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:22,200 Now, what Travis is trying to do is make himself more human. He is a person that 35 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:27,840 has been characterized by the special agents who decided to finally arrest him 36 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:32,840 and his father and their co-defendants, he's been depicted as someone who is a white racist, 37 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:38,200 a white supremacist, someone who had a Confederate Flag vanity license plate, someone who 38 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:43,760 might have actually used the N-word when he stood over Ahmaud Arbery after he shot him. 39 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:48,800 These are the kinds of depictions that his defense lawyers say are nonsense, 40 00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:53,800 that his family say is nonsense. And so he's been trying to put a human face on the events 41 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:57,520 of that tragic day, February 23, 2020. 42 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:02,480 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The defense also argued this week that -- they moved for a mistrial, 43 00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:05,520 and they also said that the -- all the charges should be dropped. 44 00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:08,000 What is the basis on which they're making that argument? 45 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:13,000 MARGARET COKER: They say clearly that nothing illegal happened that day. They have always 46 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,080 put forward that their clients have done nothing wrong, that they acted both within Georgia law, 47 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:23,080 which at the time allowed for a citizen's arrest, and also that they acted in self-defense. 48 00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:27,360 They say the prosecution hasn't hit that bar, even 49 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,920 to show that those crimes were committed. The judge, of course, 50 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:36,400 has denied all of those motions. And so here we have the defendants finally taking the stand. 51 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:40,800 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what do you make of -- the prosecution rested its case earlier this week. 52 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,800 What do you make of the case? Have they, in your judgment, hit the bar for a murder conviction? 53 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:50,840 MARGARET COKER: Yes, Georgia has a different murder statute than other states. There is no 54 00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:58,040 different degrees of murder here. It's felony murder or malice murder or manslaughter. 55 00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:03,920 And so the prosecution doesn't have to prove intent. She doesn't have to prove that someone was 56 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:08,920 a racist when they chased Ahmaud Arbery down the street. All she has to prove is that, in the heat 57 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:15,000 of the moment, that there were bad assumptions made, that there were two different -- two 58 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:20,160 different sets of opinions happening on the street that day, and they willfully killed someone. 59 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:25,120 The citizen's arrest law that's been repealed, that was -- there's very clear language that 60 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:29,680 people trying to detain a person had to have seen a felony happen 61 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:34,680 or have reasonable suspicion that that happened. Both of the McMichaels and Bryan have said they 62 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:39,040 didn't see what had happened that day. They chased Arbery for bad assumptions. 63 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:42,880 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Margaret Coker, editor in chief of The Current, thank you so much. 64 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:47,880 MARGARET COKER: Thank you.