The Arizona Murder Case Behind A Republican-Backed Gun Law

When George Alan Kelly saw a group of camouflaged men traveling across his 170-acre ranch on Jan. 30, 2023, he suspected the worst. Drug traffickers frequently pass through the area outside Kino Springs, Arizona, which lies about two miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Both Kelly and his wife, Wanda, later told police that they saw at least one of the trespassers carrying a rifle. Kelly said that when he confronted the intruders, one of them pointed a rifle toward him. In response, Kelly said he fired warning shots from his AK-47 above the group’s heads.

Arizona prosecutors tell a different story. The state accuses Kelly, 75, of shooting an unarmed migrant named Gabriel Cuen Butimea in the back from a concealed position. Cuen Butimea died on Kelly’s property. No one in the group carried either guns or drugs, prosecutors say — they were cutting through Kelly’s ranch on their way to Phoenix, where they planned to work as roofers. Kelly faces charges of second degree murder and aggravated assault.

“Kelly issued no warnings and made no requests,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “He just started shooting at them.”

The case, which goes to trial on Friday, is now spurring a debate that fuses two of the country’s most polarizing issues — guns and immigration — in a purple state that could play an outsize role in this year’s presidential election.

Arizona Republicans are pushing a law that would expand the state’s Castle Doctrine to allow people to use deadly force if they feel threatened when confronting trespassers. The law’s author, Rep. Justin Heap, told the state’s House Judiciary Committee last month that the change was needed to help ranchers remove trespassers from their property, specifically noting the