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Rioter’s Actions Are Worth Pointing Out
We’ve had some interesting discussions of various aspects of the Rittenhouse case, mostly focused on his actions. Those who were shot had provoked a confrontation with an armed man who protected himself. I see no provocation on Rittenhouse’s part and, had they not attacked him, they’d be alive. Thier own actions caused them harm.
Our basic rules have to be pretty straightforward. You have a right to defend yourself from serious bodily harm or death by whatever means keep you breathing, provided a reasonable person would agree that your life is in danger. Obviously, there’s a spectrum of threat. Can’t just shoot someone for giving you the stink eye. So what happened?
Evidently, without provocation, the rioting crowd bagan shouting at Rittenhouse, threatening him verbally and chasing him down the street.Threat to his life? Almost certainly. He’s seriously outnumbered and the crowd is hostile. Even in the course of a really good riot, have you ever chased someone down the street with a chain or skateboard or gun when that person had done nothing to you?
Then Rittenhouse got hit in the head with a skateboard. An aoutopsy would describe that as a blunt instrument. Could that have killed him? Is that a threat to his life? Check. When was the last time you chased somebody down a street and hit him in the head with a blunt instrument, when that person had done nothing to you?
Then he got kicked in the head while he was sitting on street as the hostile crowd approched him. Could that have killed him? Sure, and there was more where that came from. Legitimate threat to his life? No doubt. When was the last time you kicked somebody in the head while he was sitting on the ground, and again that person had done nothing to you?
Then the gun gets pointed at him from three feet away. Yeah, that’s a legitimate threat to your life. When was the last time you pointed a handgun at someone who’d done you no harm?
Rittenhouse is on trial for ending those threats. There’s video of it. (With all due respect to the eminently sensible Yeti, there was no video of the Trayvon Martin episode.) The rioters were the bad guys in this picture. Very bad. It doesn’t matter what anybody’s criminal record was, doesn’t matter what Rittenhouse’s grades were, doesn’t matter whether he crossed a state line doesn’t matter what anybody’s color is. The out-of-control aggression of the rioters got them killed, and those facts are not in dispute.
And yet that guy got grilled like he was a trained policeman with the prosecutor literally trying to make his case in a second by second video analysis. I’ll tell you what Rittenhouse’s state of mind was when he pulled the trigger: “Holy moley, my head hurts and they’re coming in for more.”
That’s why this case should never have been brought. Not everything needs to be litigated. Just look at the video.
This case is a Second Amendment issue. The prosecutors want to chill self defense by putting you through hell for defending yourself.
Published in Guns
Anybody know the economic make up of the jury? Poor people are more likely to relate to his victims because of the criminal connections in their own family.
Whichever, Jessica looks great and I hope she stays safe!
She will most likely hook up with the Guard for some mischief
This is why “hung jury” is a very good bet.
Should these jurors be removed for this?
Do they have alternates to replace them?
He has a rap sheet several miles long. The rest of the story here.
If that is true. Maybe a prosecutor trying for a do over.
Maybe the judge will go with the mistrial with prejudice, or something. That way only the judge’s house gets burned.
It would be grounds for a mistrial, but we should keep in mind that it may not be corroborated.
Yes, most likely the jurors themselves have to inform the judge of a problem.
But if the two jurors are holding up an acquittal for the reported reasons it sounds like the mistrial, with prejudice would be the correct action
Hmmm. But how would a US Marshall have this info? Are they acting as a bailiff for some reason in a state court? Maybe it’s something like that, but I’m skeptical.
This situation would not be tolerated for very long, would it? In other words, once it has been discussed long enough to know the holdouts won’t change, it goes directly to the judge, right? I mean maybe the judge already has it under consideration.
Yes, the jury typically reports to the judge that they are hung. The judge usually then gives them a pep talk, and tells them something like -“No one on earth knows this case better than you do, and there’s no reason to think the next jury will know any more, so go and deliberate again and see if you can get somewhere.”
If there is some hang up like the one described, the court would have to address that on the record, I would think, and entertain arguments or at least comments from the parties on how to proceed.
Does a marshal have to be federal?
It seems likely that, considering how certain events – judge chastising the prosecutor, etc – have been publicly available while hopefully not known by the jury, selecting a replacement jury for a retrial could be effectively impossible.
Per the prosecutor’s closing statements, Kyle “provoked” the attack. Karen believes that if you don’t resist you won’t be harmed. Pacifism and “safety” is her default position — see the insistence of removing anything vaguely “dangerous” from playgrounds over the last couple of decades. No risk. Masculinity is toxic. If women ruled the world there would be no war. Etcetera.
A quick web search found that Connecticut has state marshals: https://www.jud.ct.gov/faq/marshals.htm. Other than that and fire marshals, marshals seem to be a federal thing.
Searching for “Wisconsin marshals” mostly found references to US Marshals involved in/commenting on the original Kenosha riots.
I think it’s a safe bet that this refers to a US Marshal.
Unless it’s a court bailiff or something, and someone referred to them as a marshal erroneously… Maybe someone from Connecticut? :-)
I guess it’s possible, but I remain a skeptic. It would just be really weird for info like that to leak out in the first place from anyone but the judge, and if it’s true for the court to be, apparently, ignoring it. The way it plays into expectations makes me further skeptical. But I can’t say it’s impossible, of course.