The little snot had no business even being there. He had his momma drive him across state lines while fully strapped up, and ready to cause some serious trouble. While he was there, he did just that, and needs to pay a price as does his mother, why she isn’t sitting in a jail cell is a real wonder.
As for the judge, he’s a real piece of work. He might as well wear his MAGA hat in the courtroom. Ruling that they can’t call victims, victims? Come on man…
The first victim threatened Rittenhouse with what? Harsh words? A water bottle?
After the first killing it was simply the results of fleeing a crime scene. People trying to subdue an active shooter first by force and then trying to talk him down.
The defense avoided presenting facts and had to resort to deflection. First trying to smear the victims, then theatrics with Rittenhouse on the stand and then using a surprise expert (who more or less said Rittenhouse killed Rosenbaum in a panic action)
I would think he should also be facing weapons charges, and perhaps riot or menacing charges. I think the weapons charge alone is a felony. He brought that gun into the state in violation of state law.
I hope feds do charge him for that, illegally buying a gun. Because that may be the only conviction they can get here.
Except that he didn’t. I think this is the one thing he will be convicted of. He was too young to be open carrying in Wisconsin. You have to be 18.
The problem is it doesn’t matter what he had if he threatened to kill him twice previously and then ran at him (I’m not saying that part is true. I don’t know if anything confirms his claim that the man threatened to kill him twice).
Let’s not forget that violent insurrectionists were simply tourists, or at worst “rioters” not the violent insurrectionists trying to overthrow a legitimate election to keep their goon in office.
Again threatened him with what? Rosenbaum was unarmed and basically a loudmouth kook.
Rittenhouse was walking around with a gun. There was no threat except one Rittenhouse created.
If Rittenhouse is acquitted I am seriously afraid about what that will mean for the country.
It’d basically be saying it’s open season for (white, right wing) vigilantes.
That’s because the judge isn’t allowing it.
The prosecution needs to make the case that Rittenhouse came to the protests specifically as an agitator. That he had previously fantasized about killing “looters”. That his entire basis for “self defense” was entirely avoidable. That none of this would have happened if he wasn’t out LARPing out a vigilante fantasy with an illegally obtained weapon transported across state lines and then willfully inserted himself into a dangerous situation hoping to shoot someone.
They can’t because the judge has already predetermined Rittenhouse’s innocence and is doing everything he can to prevent the prosecution from making a compelling case.
It’s fucking disgusting.
From a legal standpoint, that perspective probably isn’t relevant. You don’t have to be in actual danger from a malicious aggressor to be able to claim self defense. You just have to reasonably think you are. It’s entirely possible that the situation was such that whoever fired a fatal shot would have been legally justified.
To be clear, I’m not trying to defend what Rittenhouse did. At best he was in a position he never should have been in due to his own arrogance and stupidity, but that doesn’t necessarily make him guilty of a crime. Even bad people deserve the full protection of the law.
Walk into a police station with an AR-15 over your shoulder. Start shooting every cop who draws down on you. It’s all self defense, right?
No? So maybe the context of putting yourself, armed, in the middle of a conflict that ends with you shooting 3 people and killing 2 of them, is relevant?
The context is relevant. He put himself there, through great effort, with the plan ahead of time to kill people. That’s all in the evidence. None of it is self-defense, because he had no business being there, armed to the teeth and ready to kill. Of course he was going to kill people, regardless of how they acted towards him. That was his plan.
Shouldn’t a Bible-quoting judge be grounds for a mistrial, since he’s clearly biased against other (non-Judeo-Christian) religions’ moralities?
That’s incorrect. You have to both reasonably believe you are in danger and actually be in danger. Being under an imminent threat of harm is one of the elements you have to prove to claim self defense. An objectively reasonable fear that you are going to be seriously injured or killed is a separate element.
Legally? It depends. Did you have a legitimate reason to believe that the cops were planning to kill you even if you didn’t directly threaten to shoot them with your AR-15? The cops don’t have a right to shoot you just because you are armed (as much as some of them might believe otherwise). Say you legitimately believed that the cops were planning to murder you. In that case, walking into the police station would be stupid, but it wouldn’t cancel your right to self defense.
Well, that’s really the rub of what the prosecution has to prove. If he came there with the intent to kill people, then self defense won’t apply. Legally, however, the mere fact that he was stupid enough to be somewhere he shouldn’t have been with a gun is not sufficient to prove he had an intent to kill, and the prosecution seems to be doing a pretty bad job of proving it otherwise.
IANAL, but I don’t believe that is correct. This provides a pretty clear explanation of what I’m talking about.
You do not have the right to self defense when you are in the midst of committing a crime yourself. By carrying that gun in that place at that age, he was committing a crime.
My understanding is that this is a bit of a legal grey area, though it’s certainly part of the prosecution’s argument. Wisconsin law (relevant statute) says that you can’t claim self defense if you do something illegal that provokes the other person. So the question becomes whether underage gun carrying is sufficient to claim provocation (given that simply carrying a gun in the same situation when of age would clearly not). I think people can reasonably reach different conclusions as to that point, so I don’t know what will ultimately prevail there.
The legal exemption here seems pretty narrow:
" (2) Provocation affects the privilege of self-defense as follows:
(a) A person who engages in unlawful conduct of a type likely to provoke others to attack him or her and thereby does provoke an attack is not entitled to claim the privilege of self-defense against such attack, except when the attack which ensues is of a type causing the person engaging in the unlawful conduct to reasonably believe that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. In such a case, the person engaging in the unlawful conduct is privileged to act in self-defense, but the person is not privileged to resort to the use of force intended or likely to cause death to the person’s assailant unless the person reasonably believes he or she has exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid death or great bodily harm at the hands of his or her assailant."
Is this the first time you’ve heard of this case? Rittenhouse went to Kenosha to kill protesters. He was hunting them. What part of that is at all ambiguous?
