Judges have way too much power

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

I’m sick with dread every time I open my browser to the news pages, waiting for the verdict from this jury. God help this country in the coming months and years if Rittenhouse walks without any accountability.

[Econoline]

[ex-khobar Andy]

Yes, yes and yes.

[Scooter]

Except I'm not suggesting he broke the law. He acted in legitimate defense of others. Why not make that the narrative?

[Joe Guy]

Except I'm not suggesting he broke the law. He acted in legitimate defense of others. Why not make that the narrative?

How do you conclude that Rittenhouse was acting in defense of others? I thought he claimed he was there to protect private property.

[Scooter]

I'm talking about the guy who hit Rittenhouse with the skateboard after he shot someone, who attempted (unsuccessfully) to stop him from shooting anyone else.

[BoSoxGal]

Acquitted across the board.

I hate juries because they are more often than not the embodiment of Yeats’s claim that ‘the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’

How long then before things fall apart?

[Scooter]

Foregone conclusion, even if the "judge" had not been so obviously in the tank for the defense.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Normally I hate hearing jurors talking after the fact about their deliberations. I think that should stay in the jury room.

However, I make an exception in this case. I'd like to ask: Mr/Ms Juror, if I walk into your house bearing a big gun which you have just seen me use to kill someone, and you make a not unreasonable attempt to stop me by hitting me with a skate board, am I then entitled to shoot you because I feared for my safety? Yes or no, please.

[ex-khobar Andy]

And of course the narrative from the right will now be that Rittenhouse's victims - because whatever that idiot judge said, that's what they are - are rioting assholes who deserved whatever they got from the righteous armed saint. Trump would probably give him a medal of freedom.

[Jarlaxle]

WOOHOO!

[Bicycle Bill]

Hot damn!!   The courts have spoken!!

So, I'm gonna go get me a pistol or two to carry in my handlebar bag, and stop cowering whenever I see one of those coal-rolling, pick'em-up truck driving rednecks — or those Confederate flag-flying, Trump-supporting, white supremacist Klan wanna-bes (and there's still an overly-ample supply of them in my part of 'blue-state Wisconsin') — when I'm out for a bike ride.

Just so long as I make it clear whenever I pull the trigger that I was defending myself because I felt threatened by their behavior and was in fear for my life.

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

The problem:

Rittenhouse’s self-defense claims boast legal plausibility. But they also illustrate the difficulty of reconciling mass gun ownership and expansive rights to self-defense with the rule of law.

Rittenhouse’s killing of Rosenbaum may have been lawful. But that was scarcely self-evident to the bystanders who heard gunshots and then saw a killer holding an AR-15. The group of protesters who proceeded to chase and attack Rittenhouse could have reasonably believed that killing the armed teenager was necessary to save others from imminent bodily harm. If Rittenhouse had a right to shoot Huber and Grosskreutz in self-defense, the latter had a similarly legitimate basis for shooting Rittenhouse dead.

Put differently: Once Rittenhouse fired his first shots, he and his attackers plausibly entered a context in which neither could be held legally liable for killing the other. Whether one emerged from this confrontation legally innocent or lawfully executed hinged on little more than one’s relative capacity for rapidly deploying lethal violence. Rittenhouse had a more powerful weapon and a quicker trigger finger than Huber or Grosskreutz. Thus, he walks free, in full health, while Huber lies in a grave and Grosskreutz gets by without the bulk of his right bicep.

Read the whole article here:

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Defense Was Strong
It’s also a threat to the rule of law.

[Jarlaxle]

Hot damn!!   The courts have spoken!!

So, I'm gonna go get me a pistol or two to carry in my handlebar bag, and stop cowering whenever I see one of those coal-rolling, pick'em-up truck driving rednecks — or those Confederate flag-flying, Trump-supporting, white supremacist Klan wanna-bes (and there's still an overly-ample supply of them in my part of 'blue-state Wisconsin') — when I'm out for a bike ride.

Just so long as I make it clear whenever I pull the trigger that I was defending myself because I felt threatened by their behavior and was in fear for my life.

-"BB"-

Have yourself checked for ergot exposure.

[Joe Guy]

I’m not surprised at the Rittenhouse verdict because it seemed to me that the judge was on the side of the defense. Regardless of how I feel about the verdict I accept that the jury did their job and saw more evidence than I saw. I just wish that so many people weren’t calling Rittenhouse a hero and saying it’s some kind of victory for the 2nd amendment.

I also wonder how this verdict will affect how civilians are going to react when another out of control protest/riot takes place. Will we now have self-described militias carrying firearms to “help” the police in open-carry states?

Finally, I hope those three people in the Arbery case aren’t acquitted. I'm sure Rittenhouse would feel obliged to go and protect people from burning dislocated dumpsters in Georgia. I'm concerned for his welfare and I hope he wears some body armor this time.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Mr/Ms Juror, if I walk into your house bearing a big gun which you have just seen me use to kill someone, and you make a not unreasonable attempt to stop me by hitting me with a skate board, am I then entitled to shoot you because I feared for my safety? Yes or no, please.

Have you stopped setting up false scenarios? Yes or no, please. He wasn't in anybody's "house"

I would have had a hard time being on this jury. My heart wants to have the little monster jailed forever. My head tells me that the little shit had a legal "right" to walk about on a street openly toting a gun. That he probably was scared once he was by himself and walking away, a shot was fired (not by him) and the reaction was an "attack" against him. He probably did feel he had to defend himself.

He shouldn't have been there dressed to kill. He's what insurers like to call "an attractive nuisance". Like a trampoline or an unfenced pool. But aside from the nastiness of him coming there, having a weapon he shouldn't have had (now apparently not so clear), he didn't break a law up to the time he was attacked. And he was attacked, even granted that one or two of the attackers "thought" they were doing the "right" thing

No one should have the right to hold a firearm with the express intent of shooting anyone who might break a window. But that's not what happened.

The problem is indeed, "the difficulty of reconciling mass gun ownership and expansive rights to self-defense with the rule of law".

All of those militia people carrying weapons should have been disarmed and sent home, maybe to collect their guns later. But that (apparently) would violate their right to strut about with weapons making the implicit promise to defend bricks and mortar with gunfire.

The police however - they should be allowed to shoot a rioter or two after suitable warning. Reading the riot act it used to be called.

[Econoline]

As that article I linked to above points out, if Rittenhouse had a right to shoot Huber and Grosskreutz in self-defense because he "feared for his life" then Huber and Grosskreutz certainly would have had the same legitimate reason for shooting Rittenhouse dead. (Their justification might have been even more legitimate. Huber had just seen Rittenhouse shoot a man dead, and Grosskreutz had seen him kill TWO people! They didn't have to guess; they *KNEW* he was a killer.)

Of course the only real difference is...Rittenhouse shot them first.

[Jarlaxle]

So...did you not actually pay any attention to the trial?

[Gob]

Later in the day, bystander video captures Mr Rittenhouse being chased into the car park of a used car dealership by Joseph Rosenbaum, 36.

Moments later, unseen on video, Mr Rittenhouse fires four times and kills Rosenbaum.

As he runs down the street away from the scene, Mr Rittenhouse falls and multiple people converge upon him.

Anthony Huber, 26, hits him in the head and neck with a skateboard. Mr Rittenhouse kills him with a bullet to the stomach.

Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, approaches him with a pistol in hand. Mr Rittenhouse wounds him with a shot in the arm.

All three victims were white.

Meh, in a riot, chasing a man armed with a rifle isn't the smartest thing to do. Having seen him shoot a man four times, attacking him armed only with a skateboard, is even less smart. At least the third guy had a gun.