Bad assumptions and the consequences thereof
AGlynn County jury convicted three men of murder last week. To say that the Arbery trial was high profile would be belaboring the obvious, and as with most high-profile cases there is sure to be a lot of Monday morning lawyering and jurying going on.
One thing is for sure, this case is a prime example of what can happen as a result of bad assumptions. Oftentimes, bad assumptions lead to very bad actions. Based on what we know from the public record of this case, the bad assumptions were many, the bad actions were deadly, and the results are tragic.
Perhaps by examining the bad assumptions we can learn something useful, something we can use to keep ourselves out of a similar situation.
The first of the bad assumptions in this case appears to be that one can accost a total stranger on the street for no reason. Such is not the case. The constitution and laws of the United States guarantee freedom of movement, even for people we don’t like.
One wonders why the individuals in question did not just take pictures and make a suspicious person report to the police. Or, they could have followed the individual until he left their neighborhood, if they indeed thought he was a burglar. There is of course some doubt surrounding the burglar/citizen arrest story, the outcome of the trial would seem to indicate that the jury did not find it convincing, and there is apparently no evidence directly linking the victim to burglaries in the area.
Three men made the assumption that they could accost and assault a total stranger and get away with it, despite having no direct evidence that he had committed, or was then committing, a felony, which is a requirement for citizen’s arrest. A very bad assumption indeed.
The spectre of racial prejudice has hung over this case like a cloud of poison gas from the very beginning. The attorneys that I have heard comment, those who have followed the case closely, have expressed incredulity at the strategy employed by the defense in this case. It appears that the defense assumed that having a nearly all white jury would give them an advantage.
Some question whether this assumption is what led the defense to employ what are being referred to as racial dog-whistle tactics during the trial. If indeed this was the case, it was a very bad assumption.
This case is a tragedy. A tragedy for all concerned. It is an example of what can happen when we allow bad assumptions to cloud our judgement. One man is dead and three otherwise law-abiding, middle-class citizens will spend this holiday season, and many more to come, behind bars as convicted murderers. All because they acted based on assumptions, they assumed the worst about someone they knew nothing about, and they assumed there would be no consequence for their actions.
Whether racism or racial prejudice was the motivating factor in this case will likely be determined by the Federal hate crime trial scheduled for next year, but it is easy to wonder if a white guy running through the neighborhood would have attracted the same consternation.
An old proverb states “Wise men learn by other’s mistakes, fools scarcely by their own.” Let us count ourselves among the wise and consider our path based on knowledge and not on assumption.
Because, as this case clearly teaches us, bad assumptions sometimes have very bad consequences. Or put another way, “Never assume, lest you make an ass of you and me.”