Arbery, Rittenhouse cases spotlight self-defense and vigilantism

Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges. All three men charged in Ahmaud Arbery's death were convicted in his murder.

The verdicts in favor of Kyle Rittenhouse and against the men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery have shone a renewed spotlight on vigilantism and self-defense in America.

While in many respects dramatically different, including their outcomes -- Rittenhouse was acquitted and the defendants in the Arbery case were convicted of murder -- both high-profile cases center on people who were armed and put themselves into potentially dangerous situations, fatally shooting people in the process and asserting that they did so in self-defense.

According to experts and advocates, the landscape of self-defense laws in recent decades has shifted to a more expansive notion that includes the right not to retreat from danger. The burden of proving self-defense in court has been removed in many jurisdictions, shifting the responsibility to disprove self-defense to the prosecution.

As part of this trend, at least 27 states have passed controversial "stand your ground laws" since the early 1990s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.