Originally published at: Juror at Kyle Rittenhouse trial removed after cracking joke about Jacob Blake shootings | Boing Boing
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Good. Just when I was getting the impression the judge was being overly biased towards the defendant, he makes a right call once in a while. The other good call was excluding the character background evidence of the victims as irrelevant and prejudicial.
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Don’t let this one fool you. He’s still overly biased toward the defendant. You don’t need to dig up background dirt on the victims when the judge has already granted permission to call them “looters” and “rioters.”
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It looks like the judge is trying to keep the case as appeal-proof as possible. Part of the ruling about the labels for the victims is that it has to come out in evidence, evidence that is relevant to the events in question. Something for the press but nigh impossible for the defense to use in a meaningful way.
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Is there a word (possibly in German with fifteen syllables) for when you know something is really funny but it only makes you sad?
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That’s insane. I just looked it up and it looks like there is one POC out of the twenty. Friggin wow.
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Friggen USA…
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Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick. That’s one way to get out of jury duty…
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It does bother me a bit that that was the case, until I looked into what the judge said. He only allowed that characterization of looting and rioting IF the defense can prove that the people involved WERE DIRECTLY and legally rioting and looting, and that Kyle Rittenhouse KNEW they were directly rioting and looting at the time he observed them.
I don’t think they’ll be able to prove that they were rioting and looting, and they sure as hell won’t be able to prove that Kyle Rittenhouse, a guy from out of town, who encountered these people for seconds if that and was carrying a weapon, KNEW these people were rioting and looting.
If they want to go down that road, they’re going to have to thread a needle very, very tightly, on how their client knew these people were rioting and looting. And if they can’t prove it, it won’t be allowed.
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Are they going to take his WORD on it? He believes that they were ALL rioting and looting, because that’s what Fox news TOLD him was happening…
Dude. This is America, and the people he shot were supporting BLM. When has the American justice system EVER not assumed that Black people and the white people who support them are by definition criminals?
Or they’ll just wave it off and let Rittenhouse go free. Quickly, too, so they can get back to their real job, incarcerating working class Black men.
Do you really believe that?
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I don’t really have much else to hope on on this. The state is banned from appealing an acquittal due to reversible error and jeopardy attaches. He was initially appointed by a democrat, but , wisconsin elects judges, and they run nonpartisan tickets.
Derek Chauvin.
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This trial is so incredibly important; it scares me to death. With Republicans asking openly when they can start shooting people, this verdict will be an answer. If it goes the wrong way, I can’t help but think the snowball will start rolling downhill.
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Okay. You seemed to be arguing in your comment the opposite of “America had a racist system”… So… What do you think? that this is a fair trail or that Rittenhouse is going to get off because he’s white? 
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I really think it will be impossible for this jury to convict. The key quote, when the now-dismissed juror was before the judge:
“My feelings is, it was nothing to do with the case. It was nothing to do with Kyle and his charges,” the juror told the judge.
Note the reference to the defendant — “Kyle.” First name basis, familiarity. Honest jurors who know about the case and already have some opinions, those folks get dismissed during selection. Dishonest potentials, with maybe a bone to pick, can find a way onto the panel if they’re clever and careful. Guarantee there’s another just like this now-dismissed moron.
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This case is insanely depressing. I keep wondering how it is even a case. But the issue is that where I live if you showed up to that protest with a weapon like that, that would be illegal. If someone then got killed with that weapon, it would be hard to argue self-defense because you were already committing another crime that set the stage for the death.
It’s recklessly negligent to show up to an angry crowd with a gun. If you genuinely think you will need a gun to defend yourself, stay away from the situation in the first place.
If the protestors shown in that video had killed Rittenhouse they would definitely have been acting in self-defense. To accept that both parties could have killed in self-defense would be a horrific testament to the way the second amendment justifies killing.
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Don’t underestimate the possibility of “Rittenhouse is going to get off because Americans are OK with vigilante murders.”
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FTFY, because it is, factually, racism. Period, pure and simple.
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Accepted that the killing of black folks is more acceptable. But American society is highly tolerant of gun killings and of vigilante killings especially. Even the the vigilantism is in the eye of the beholder.
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