The Rule of Black Capture & The Ahmaud Arbery Case

• Author: Ciji Dodds
• Position: Associate Professor of Law, Albany Law School
• Pages: 31-83

The Rule of Black Capture & The Ahmaud

Arbery Case

CIJI DODDS*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

I. DEFINING BLACKNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

II. THE RULE OF BLACK CAPTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

III. POLICING BLACKNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

A. Slave Laws, Slave Patrol Codes, and Black Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

1. Slave Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

a. South Carolina Negro Act of 1740: An Act For the

Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other

Slaves in This Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

b. Maryland Laws, Act of 1751, ch. xiv, § 9 . . . . . . . . 46

2. Slave Patrol Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

a. North Carolina Patrol Regulations for The Town of

Tarborough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

b. Alabama Slave Code of 1852 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3. Pre–Abolition Black Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

a. Maryland Session Laws, ch. 85 (1823) . . . . . . . . . . 47

b. Mississippi Revised Code of 1857, § XIII, art. 84 . . . 47

B. Post-Abolition Black Codes, Vagrancy Laws, Labor Laws, &

Citizens’ Arrest Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

1. Black Codes: Vagrancy Laws & Labor Laws . . . . . . . . . . . 50

a. The Black Code of St. Landry’s Parish, Louisiana

1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

* Associate Professor of Law, Albany Law School. I extend my sincerest gratitude to my research assistants,

Olivia Kim, Louis Grasso, Olivia Harvey, Jason Scagline, and Shaniece Hunter, for their thoughtful and dili-

gent work. Additionally, many thanks to Café Dessalines. © 2023, Ciji Dodds.

31

b. North Carolina Black Codes of 1866: Laws in Relation

to Freedmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2. Citizen’s Arrest Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

a. The Black Code of St. Landry’s Parish Louisiana

1865 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

b. Mississippi Black Codes of 1865, § 7 . . . . . . . . . . . 51

C. The Rule & Modern Racialized Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

1. The Supreme Court Sustains the Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

a. Adolph Lyons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

b. Dethorne Graham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

c. George Floyd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

d. Venus Green. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

2. Society is Addicted to the Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

IV. A SLAVE PATROL FEVER DREAM – THE AHMAUD ARBERY CASE . . . . . . . 67

A. The Events Leading Up to February 23

rd

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

B. February 23

rd

, 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

1. Ahmaud was Bold, Unafraid, & Silent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

2. Ahmaud Dismantled the Asymmetrical Power-Relation

Between White Supremacy & Blackness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

3. Ahmaud Chose to Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

C. The Trials & The Verdicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

1. Georgia v. Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and

William “Roddie” Bryan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

2. United States v. Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael,

and William “Roddie” Bryan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

32 GEO. J. L. & MOD. CRIT. RACE PERSP. [Vol. 14:31

My name is Jasmine Arbery. Ahmaud is my brother, and I would like to tell you a

little about him. Ahmaud had dark skin that glistened in the sunlight like gold.

He had thick coily hair, and he would often like to twist it. Ahmaud had a broad

nose and the color of his eyes was filled with melanin. He was tall with an athletic

build. He enjoyed running and had an appreciation for being outdoors. These are

the qualities that made these men assume that Ahmaud was a dangerous criminal

and chase him with guns drawn. To me, those qualities reflect that of a young

man full of life and energy who looked like me and the people I love. Ahmaud was

funny. He told jokes to lighten the mood because he was a positive thinker.

Ahmaud had a big personality and never missed an opportunity to let it shine.

Ahmaud had a future that was taken from him in an instance of violence. He was

robbed of his life pleasures, big and small. He will never be able to fulfill his pro-

fessional dreams. Nor will he be able to start a family or even be a part of my

daughter’s life. The loss of Ahmaud has devastated my family and me. So, I’m ask-

ing that the men that killed him be given the maximum sentence available to the

court. Thank you.

1

11Alive, Ahmaud Arbery’s Sister Gets Emotional Speaking in Courtroom as His Killers Await Sentencing,

YOUTUBE (Jan. 7, 2022), https://perma.cc/Q2PWM9P6.

INTRODUCTION

An intimate and lurid form of cruelty,

2

the incessant policing of black people is a

necropolitical

3

sport that evinces our country’s built-in tolerance for lawless

4

racial-

ized violence. It is a form of play.

5

Black people are treated as sub-human objects to

be hunted, possessed, “toyed with and discarded.”

6

This article argues that racialized

policing and the related extrajudicial brutalization and killing of black people derive

their legitimacy from the Rule of Black Capture. The Rule of Black Capture is one of

society’s unspoken and yet universally adhered to laws that was once overtly codified.

Now, whereas America’s legal system has been bifurcated into a de jure legal system

comprised of race-neutral laws

7

that operate at the surface level of society and a de

facto legal system comprised of unspoken, white supremacist-oriented laws that oper-

ate beneath society’s surface, the Rule of Black Capture has been codified in

America’s hidden, subterranean body of law.

The Rule of Black Capture (the “Rule”) is a three-part declarative rule

8

that white

supremacists created to exercise ubiquitous disciplinary power over black people.

First, mere pursuit is sufficient to give a white supremacist the right to control and

possess a black body. The pursuer may effectuate his right “without bodily touch or

1.

2. See ACHILLE MBEMBE, NECROPOLITICS 73 (2019).

3. See id. at 92.

4. Id. at 77.

5. Id. at 73.

6. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 273 (1972).

7. See MICHELLE ALEXANDER, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF

COLORBLINDNESS 240-42 (2012); see generally Neil Gotanda, A Critique of “Our Constitution is Color-blind,”

44 STAN. L. REV. 1 (1991).

8. The Rule is constituted from the synthesis of principles of behavioral science, property law, and race

and the law.

2022] THE RULE OF BLACK CAPTURE 33