How are five murder charges used for each defendant in the Arbery case?
<p>I saw on the news that all three defendants were found guilty of murder of Ahmaud Arbery. I watched the verdict video and noticed the charges, and became confused when I heard that they each had been charged with 5 counts of murder.</p>
<p><em>Each</em> defendant was charged with one count of <em>malice murder</em> and four counts of <em>felony murder</em>, a total of five murder charges for each defendant.</p>
<p>How is that possible? Why and how can they put four felony murder charges on each person when they murdered one man?</p>
<p>Is this because of federal law or Georgia state law?</p>

<p>Georgia doesn't have degrees of murder, but instead has malice murder and felony murder. Neither requires prosecutors to prove an intent to kill.</p>
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<li><p>The three men demonstrated “malice aforethought” when they jointly and illegally chased Arbery through the streets in pickup trucks and shot him. That's the basis for the malice murder charge.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The three men were charged with jointly intentionally committing four felonies each — two counts of aggravated assault and one count each of false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Each of those felonies caused Arbery's death. Thus four felony murder charges each.</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p><strong>Felony murder</strong> is a charge brought when a person P, who is committing a felony, regardless of intent to harm or kill another person Q, causes the death of Q.</p>
<p>The defendants in this case had committed several felony crimes during the chase and confrontation afterwards, variously</p>
<ul>
<li><p>aggravated assault</p>
</li>
<li><p>false imprisonment</p>
</li>
<li><p>criminal attempt to commit felony</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that the resulting verdicts on felony murder match the verdicts on individual felonies: defendant Bryan was found not guilty of aggravated assault (using a firearm - Bryan did not take a weapon when he joined the chase) and therefore not guilty on one count of felony murder.</p>
<p>He was found guilty on the other charge of aggravated assault (using a vehicle) and therefore of that count of felony murder.</p>

murder georgia