Bail is a guarantee that you will appear in court. If you appear at the required date it is returned to you, and if you don’t the bail money is forfeit and you’re now a fugitive.
For those that can’t afford bail, they can take out a loan with a bail bond agent who will front the cash for you (and naturally charge a 10-15% fee for their service). The catch is that the bond agent is the one guaranteeing your appearance, so if you don’t appear in court, they will send people out to find you (so-called bounty hunters) and deliver you to the court.
Laws differ by state, and Wisconsin doesn’t allow commercial bail bonds. Instead of going to Bob’s Bail Shack, the kid from Silver Spoons and MyPillow guy are fronting the cash to guarantee that Rittenhouse will appear in court. If he skips town, they lose their money.
Usually the lesser felony gets incorporated into the larger one of multiple homicide.
Plus the current story seems to be that he was given the gun in Wisconsin. Which may just be bullshit in order to wrangle a plea deal.
There is no self defense here. He had the gun for an illegal purpose (using deadly force to protect property is illegal) had a duty to retreat from conflict and killed two unarmed people.
But if they prove the gun charge, then isn’t self defense moot? I mean, the whole point of that rule is so that a bank robber can’t plead self-defense for killing a guard who is pointing a gun at the robber. It’s murder, even if the other party presents a lethal threat, since it occurred during the commission of a felony.
I don’t think that is necessarily true, but I do think they should be crafted to discern the difference between defense and looking for a fight. Both Zimmerman and and Rittenhouse put themselves in a position where they were more likely to be in danger.
Before this gets flagged for victim blaming, I think there is a distinction between someone who randomly ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time either through poor decisions, not knowing better, or bad luck, and people knowingly go out of their way to confront or antagonize.
That said, if someone breaks into my house or attacks me at random (or not so random), I should have the ability to meet force on force without a duty to retreat. Is retreat still a good tactic in some situations? Absolutely. Removing yourself from danger is the #1 goal. But I think the legal benefit of the doubt should be given to the victim forced to defend themselves.
Some people want to shoot people. They think it would be fun, shooting someone they don’t like.
I’ve been on enough right-leaning forums to have seen it clearly, and sometimes even said plainly. People who advocate for SYG laws frequently want to shoot people, and that is why they are for them.
It’s also why when SYG laws are implemented, there’s a big rise in unjustifiable homicide.
The self defense is moot regardless of how he got the gun. Claiming it was to defend property is also a felony which precludes self defense.
There could be no lethal threat for an assault weapon toting person by two unarmed people. Even if confronted, he had a duty to retreat.
If he acted in self defense why did he not seek protection from police present there or all over the place? That speaks more of a desire to get away with murder than seeking protection for ones life.
The castle doctrine is the exception to a duty to retreat but it is very very limited. It only applies to your own home/domicile and only in defense of people. Never purely defense of property.
Stand your ground laws are violent garbage which only encourage unjustifiable homicide. Wisconsin doesn’t have one.
Bullshit. Zimmerman was in no danger. He straight up murdered a kid for no reason and then got off because he killed someone less white than him. Rittenhouse did not have to go to “defend” businesses that he had absolutely no fucking connection with. He went there in the hope of being able to shoot an “antifa”.
These are people who took it upon themselves to murder someone else for no reason whatsoever, other than their own thinly veiled racism. In a just society, none of their justifications would be acceptable to any of us. There is no justification for what they did.
That is precisely what they did, and they are not the ones who are dead. They KILLED others to help “purify” society.
What’s worse, is that Zimmerman is a massive piece of shit who keeps doing shitty things to other people.
But we (as a society) keep building and reinforcing justice systems that forgive and protect people like him and some keep bending over backwards to defend people like him and Rittenhouse. God it’s depressing.
