The system works - when you force it to work

Justice is done in the Ahmaud Arbery case.

Even before the murder of George Floyd was broadcast to the world, setting off a summer of protests and debate about racist inequities in the justice system, the video of Ahmaud Arbery being chased down by three white men shook me to my core. It was the kind of thing you expected to see in the state of Georgia in 1950, not 2020.

And, at first, the local justice system treated it the old-fashioned away, by sweeping it under the rug. Only when video emerged a few months later were the assailants charged with murder.

I figured convictions were likely, but I was very worried about the consequences of an acquittal. I felt about the same as I did as we approached the Derek Chauvin verdict earlier this year - or even last year’s election, which I figured Biden was likely to win but wouldn’t rest easy until we knew Trump had been beaten. The downside risk was relatively small, but potentially calamitous.

The verdict is in: guilty, guilty, guilty.

A Georgia jury has convicted three white men o…