If I'm a little nervous about things as well sometimes Howard kingfish Franklin he died of COVID-19 in August at the age of 51 You're listening to all things considered for NPR news Our time now 5 44 glides are long for all things considered on members supported 90.1 W ABE I'm Jim beris After taking the better part of three weeks to see the jury the trial of three white men accused of killing ahmaud Arbery a black man got underway in Brunswick today Lisa Hagan is in Glen county to cover the proceedings and Lisa what did jurors hear on this day one Prosecutor Linda Dana cossy began the day of opening arguments and what we heard from her was an argument that the defendants in this case all acted on that day in February 2020 based on the worst possible assumptions She walked the jury through the facts of the case from the states side which were that the mcmichaels they didn't know the owner of the house where Arbery had been sort of jogging and looking around and they made decisions to get the guns At their houses they they didn't call the police right away She was saying you know that they did everything they could to trap Arbery which is where kidnapping charges come in in this case And she also made sure to say that no one declared during this incident that they were making a citizen's arrest So this argument that we are likely to hear from the defense and have in fact heard from the defenses that about a citizen's arrest being made is not relevant Because presumably the law that was in effect then that is not now but you would have to announce that The person would have to know that they were under citizens arrest for it to be valid I think there are some other very specific parameters about that And I'm sure it's going to become a central part of the case but it's simply trying to get at the idea of intent that there was no sort of formal reason the mcmichaels and roddy Bryan should have been out doing what they did that day She says That's one side Yes And you heard from the other Yes indeed Well we've heard from bob Rubin who is the defense lawyer for Travis mcmichael That's the son in this case He's the one who actually fired the shotgun but killed Arbery And Ruben sort of explains his way of framing this is that this is a case about duty and responsibility Any sort of lays out all of the ways that he believes them like Michaels or Travis in this case 'cause that's his client we're trying to protect their community from alleged acts of burglary There was really only one theft that happened So there's a lot of discussion about that One thing that I will note it's very clear that the defense is doing everything it can so far to tie the mcmichaels to sort of notions of law enforcement Of course we know that the older mcmichael Gregory had some experience in law enforcement as an investigator And they're also playing up the idea that Travis the son had coast guard training and was actually a trainer within the coast guard So I think we're going to see a lot of arguments around these guys were trained law enforcement and even though they didn't have arrest powers that day They did everything within the normal parameters of how police officers might act in that situation And the jury which has so far been the focus of the entire trial Did you get a sense of how they took both sides Could you read like a facial expression or did they show any type of engagement You know it's difficult because some of the jurors have masks on What I do know is that the parents of ahmaud Arbery are in court today And you know they have had to take moments Marcus Arbery senior walked out of the building when they were showing video of the incident and my understanding is that Wanda Cooper Jones Arbery's mom has been crying through the video and sounding fairly upset at the defense's argument thus far There's speculation that the trial may go much longer than initially thought Do you have a sense on that I do not it's hard to say it's really going to depend on how quickly we get through the rest of these arguments But we do know the jury selection has taken longer than expected So we'll see about the rest of the trial Lisa Hagen is covering the Arbery trial down in Brunswick Georgia Lisa thank you so much for joining us Thank you Jim 5 49 on this Friday afternoon Welcome to the weekend taking a look at traffic.