Rittenhouse walked; the Arbery defendants were convicted. What do we make of this? That a teenage defendant who cries on the stand gets more sympathy than older men who don’t? That it was the more violent environment in Wisconsin that made the self-defense argument more credible? That Georgia juries have a different perspective on self-defense than Wisconsin juries?
My guess is that it was all of those things–particularly #2. The good news is that the two cases didn’t collectively send the message that a white man with a gun is automatically entitled to a presumption of self-defense and must, therefore, be obeyed by unarmed members of the public. From a policy perspective, that is what really matters here.