So it was reckful?
All counts. Not even reckless endangerment. I’ve seen sober explanations that he had a good case for self-defense, but…not even “but you shouldn’t have been there with an assault rifle in the first place”?
I got nothin’.
Tip Jar
All counts. Not even reckless endangerment. I’ve seen sober explanations that he had a good case for self-defense, but…not even “but you shouldn’t have been there with an assault rifle in the first place”?
I got nothin’.
Conservatwitter is happily calling for the little vigilante to sue all the liberal media and Biden for defamation because of this. It’s possible that the jury couldn’t get past the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, but that hardly means that there was no cause for action. And of course, we have people referring to the victims’ criminal histories as justification for their deaths.
I follow some people because of their GC stand, but then see that I don’t like them after all and have to just stop following. This is one of those times.
I suppose there’s still a case for a civil trial, like what happened to OJ Simpson.
But this is… not good. Very double plus ungood.
And I worry about the McMichael/Bryan trial, and the message these are sending. It’s becoming clearer every day that you can carry around a military-grade weapon and kill just about anyone you want in this country with impunity, as long as you’re white.
Guess it helps to be a babyfaced white boy who’s not above bawling in front of the judge.
It seems that the relevant law is badly drafted, such that it was not illegal for him to walk around with that gun. The judge thus directed that that gun-possession charge be dropped. So, no, being there in the first place with that rifle was not against any law.
Note that the “reckless endangerment” charge was not about the possession of the gun, it was about shooting those who attacked him in such a way that bullets might hit bystanders. But, the legal direction was, if those shots were justified as “self defense”, then that also negated the “reckless endangerment” aspect. Thus, “reckless endangerment” was only ever an extra charge that could apply only if they convicted him on the accompanying homicide charge.
And the “self-defense” defense always was strong. As Jesse Singal and others are saying on Twitter, anyone surprised at the verdict (or thinking it’s a travesty) should re-appraise what media they read.
Wild west rules. I suppose if one of the fellows who Rittenhouse killed had, instead, killed Rittenhouse, he would have been equally justified. What lesson should we take from this?
@5:
That doesn’t follow. A major part of Rittenhouse’s defense was that he was running away and being chased, or was lying on the ground having been knocked there by blows from people chasing him.
Those doing the chasing, or who advanced on and closed in on the prone Rittenhouse, and then pointed a gun at him, would not have the same “self defense” justification. They could have simply not advanced on him. It does matter who is doing the chasing and who the running away.
“The law is the dark shadow of justice. It does not shine. It’s not even the same shape but it is connected. We know what cast the shadow and it’s as close as we can get.” A quote from an otherwise forgettable movie (Criminal Justice) talking about the disconnect between the law and justice that I’ve always remembered.
Justice is more of a gut check. The law seems more like whatever rules come out in response to some prior outrage. Justice is complex and nuanced. The law is more mechanistic. That’s the problem. Laws attempt to address specific circumstances, often in situations that are hard to categorize into simple discrete buckets.
By the law, he has been judged innocent. But many of us have a sense that isn’t just. Was he in a situation where he worried for his own safety? Probably – of course justice would argue that he was only in danger because of his prior actions. Going into a crowd and threatening people with a machine gun is neither reasonable nor prudent. But being a gun totting bully isn’t a crime apparently. I’m waiting for some burglar to claim self-defense for shooting a home owner who threatened them for breaking into their home.
I suppose the moral of the story is that if you see one of these asshats walking around with a gun just take them out – after all you felt threatened.
Our civil war just got hotter.
.
The Kenosha riots happened because Jacob Blake freely made the choice to go attack a woman who he had had a relationship with. She called the police. The police arrived and Blake refused to do what they were telling him to do. He picked up a knife while apparently trying to get into a car that had children in it. He was then shot by police.
Blake survived but will be partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Some people felt that this shooting by police was not justified and they decided to protest. The protests turned into riots when some people decided that looting and burning and attacking people was something they could get away with.
The whole matter would never have happened if Jacob Blake had made a different choice. The cops would never have been called. He would never have been shot. The riots would never have happened. Rittenhouse would have spent that night having burgers or something at the local fast food. Two men with criminal pasts would be alive and one other man with a criminal past would still have an undamaged arm.
This whole string of events started with a misogynist crime and ended up being a fine example of what chaos and bloodshed happens when “community policing” replaces actual policing. Nobody is going to learn a single darn thing from all this, though. We are certainly not going to tackle male on female violence any time soon.
The best option for justice now is for Rittenhouse to kill himself.
#7:
Except that he didn’t threaten people with the gun.
He had a gun, yes, but there’s no good evidence that he pointed it at anyone or threatened anyone with it (prior to the shooting incidents, that is, incidents which he did not initiate), and the jury presumably accepted that he had not done so, given their verdicts.
Except that he didn’t threaten people with the gun.
We apparently have very different ideas as to what constitutes a threat. A civilian carrying an assault rifle in public is intended as a threat.
Well he didn’t just have a gun, he carried a gun – an assault rifle. I read somewhere yesterday that he was carrying it in the “low ready” position, which is less threatening than pointing it but still somewhat threatening.
I didn’t know the reckless endangerment charge wasn’t a separate charge though. Scratch that part of the post.
I do tend to think that shooting anyone openly carrying a firearm (which is to say, not slung or holstered, but in a posture that facilitates it’s use) is justified in the moral sense (if “moral” can even be said to be the right word) because such a person presents a clear and present danger to everyone around them.
All guns are loaded and all shots fired are kill shots… Basic firearm rules those.
I blame the full acquittal on incompetent prosecution.
The rioters shouldn’t have been there. Rosenbaum, who was mentally unstable (to put it charitably) shouldn’t have been there. Rittenhouse shouldn’t have been there.
As southwest88 points out
I think the verdict was the correct one given the circumstances and the presumption of innocence. And instead of directing our ire at this kid, we should all be doing some hard thinking about what led to this clusterfuck.
No one should have been there. But they were, and Rittenhouse went there to murder people. He wasn’t part of the “community policing” — he wasn’t part of the community at all.He traveled across state lines. All this verdict does is give a green light for more murders of anyone the gun-junkies don’t like.
Rittenhouse deserves all the ire thrown at him and then some. I hope his life becomes a living hell. A fucking short one.
I admit I have a definite bias against the American gun fetish. I learned to handle firearms from WWII vets, none of whom carried firearms routinely. To this day if someone were to hand me a weapon I would inspect and clear it the way they learned to do it during inspection in the 1940’s.
I was a trauma surgeon for more than 25 years. In that time, I treated wounds made by 22 cal pistols and rifles, 38s, 9mm, 10mm, 45 cal colts, black powder muzzle loaders, 12 gauge shotguns, 30 cal long guns and the 5.56mm favored by many of the assault rifles in civilian hands. Victims from 80 years of age to 7. Not saying my experience was typical, but I never once treated someone shot by someone defending their home. A fair number of police officers shot in the line, but no home defenders. Three mass casualty ‘events’.
Worried far more than once about getting cut on frangible fragments in our victims from ammo banned by the military but allowed for civilians.
Many suicides or attempts, many domestic assaults, many unintentional injuries. Lots of people cleaning guns or handling weapons that were ‘not loaded’. Only a handful of stranger on stranger crimes. Usually the shooter knew the vic. Lots of gang shootings – sometimes repeaters with a history of a prior GSW.
FYI: if home defense is your goal you can’t beat a 12 gauge shotgun. It imparts tremendous energy to the target at the ranges a home defender would face, is a hell of a lot easier to aim than a handgun and won’t travel 8 blocks through 2 houses and kill your neighbor.
The 5.56mm injuries were the stuff of nightmares. Designed for combat use, the wounds were devastating. At least as bad as a 30 cal rifle. Rifles injuries were a whole different level from the handguns. Handguns fire subsonic rounds. So the tissue injury is directly related to the path of the projectile. Rifles fire supersonic missiles. Very little of the actual energy of the projectile is imparted to the victim – that’s why it passes through usually. But while it’s passing through the tissues, it’s accompanied by a supersonic shock wave several times larger than the size of the slug (several inches in some cases). Everything in the path of that shock wave might be damaged or destroyed.
I can’t say that I came away from the experience with a great appreciation for the Second Amendment.
I gotta say, I don’t like calls for people to kill themselves.
Great, this verdict basically crafts a blueprint for how to get away with killing political opponents. Visibly arm yourself (even an illegal firearm will do), visit a protest or other site of unrest, creepily wander around offering blandishments belied by your gun, then shoot anyone that gets pushy. The volatile situation justifies it, even though he helped worsen it.
___
#9 Domino
No. He deserves imprisonment, but not death.
That’s an interesting assumption. Can you read everyone’s mind, or just teenagers’?
Twenty miles. His father lived there; he had friends there; he’d worked there.
He cleaned up graffiti and intended to protect a (minority owned) business.
OK.
Rob #17 — agree, we don’t have to to lower ourselves to that level but this Domino is just speaking for herself or himself. I think he or she is the first person I have ever seen sink to that level on B&W.
Holms #18 — I can’t grok why anybody would think it was a good idea to “get pushy” with a visibly armed person but I am a woman. Everything from Jacob Blake to Rittenhouse in this fustercluck just stinks of Stuff Stupid Stupid Men Do. And before anybody says it, yes, NAMALT! :)
Bad laws, bad customs. ‘Community policing’, and a stupid young man trying to be heroic. The verdict seems correct in the circumstances – but what a mess those circumstances are.
southwest88 #19:
<- this guy has definitely sunk that low but I like to think post-summer 2020 I'm past it.
There is no low level to sink to. That people are innately good and worthy of life is a religious belief, not a fact.
Rittenhouse deserves to die. He does not deserve to be allowed to live.
Oh, dear. I’m afraid I think that you cannot get much lower, Domino. Are you trolling, I wonder? So, are people innately bad then, in your view? Or what? Perhaps we all deserve to die. Rittenhouse is a foolish young man, whose attempts at being heroic were abetted by the peculiar situation in the USA regarding guns. I hope that he might learn something worthwhile from what happened (though I am not going to bet on it). He seems to be a rather better person than the poisonous individual who murdered Trayvon Martin, though, again, he may well not be.
Tim Harris #23
I think Domino might fit in better at Pharyngula ;)
Some of the people who comment there match his vicious dramatic streak quite well :)
He is amusing because I see myself as one of the most, let us say, atavistic and cold-hearted people to comment here. And now here is Domino making me seem like a starry-eyed peacenik. That is not a common experience for me! Though I do believe that most people are capable of not acting like knuckle-dragging buffoons and brutes IF they know that most of the people around them will not appreciate that stupidity.
Thank you, Southwest! I much liked your first fair-minded comment. But this of course has become a cause célebre (sorry, don’t know how to do grave accents, but I can manage acute ones) with too many people lining vociferously up on either side of a chasm between opinions. I suspect the consequence of the verdict, though, will be that vigilantism gets an unpleasant boost. In which connexion, I see that Paul Goslar has said he will arm wrestle Matt Gaetz to decide who gets Kyle Rittenhouse as an intern. Perhaps Jim Jordan will agree to referee it.
#22 Domino
It is a belief, but it is not a religious one. Many things we hold as principles are similar in nature. This includes your idea that some people deserve death.
Domino,
I’ve already said my piece on Rittenhouse here, and I had intended to move on from this, but I will allow myself a short rejoinder to your comments here taken as a whole.
You simply have an incorrect impression of the facts of this case. Rittenhouse was very much a member of the Kenosha community — his father and several extended family members lived there, and Rittenhouse himself worked there. The “state line” he crossed was a few miles from where he lived; a not-very-fit person could walk from Rittenhouse’s house to the gas station he spent much of the night guarding in two or three hours. In all cases in which he employed deadly force, he was under attack, at first by a mentally-unstable violent man who had spent the evening spoiling for a fight with anyone who would have him — and who chased Rittenhouse down and tackled him while Rittenhouse was attempting to escape. The other men also did not allow an escape, and presented him with the apparent choice between shooting them or allowing them to shoot him, either with his own gun or with the pistol the maimed man pointed at his head.
These are the relevant facts of the case. The only belief in this comment thread reminiscent of a religious one is your belief that Rittenhouse was a lone-wolf white supremacist stranger who went to a random anarchic zone with a gun in order to murder people, and so he deserves to die. That is a lie, every single element of it, which any casual examination of the public record (including ubiquitous video evidence) or any summary of the facts presented and proven at the trial shows.
You have been lied to by sociopaths with no regard for the truth, who are pushing a narrative every bit as socially destructive as any that get bandied about on Fox News, in pursuit of a religious ideology which is eroding the common foundation of truth and reason upon which the modern world was built. That world is fragile, a Jenga tower with only a few blocks at the base and an enormous, precariously-balanced baroque cathedral at the top. The barbarians are not at the gates; they are within each of us, and they yearn to be let loose, to smash at the foundations of the tower and bring the blocks all tumbling down.
We saw in Kenosha what happens when people let those barbarians inside of them loose. Personally, I believe we should avoid allowing Kenoshas to develop in the first place; the previous century is rife with examples of what happens when a society allows them to become the dominant mode of political expression, and it is never anything good.
Durchwanderer, thank you very much for this, and also for pointing me to your eloquent previous comment, which I had missed.
You’re welcome, Tim.
@#6,
If Rittenhouse were dead, he would not be able to present a defense. Instead, the person who shot him would have been presenting the defense. Dead men tell no tales.
If that defendant were, say, Gaige Grosskreutz – who, in this counterfactual, had used his gun, when he had the opportunity, to kill Rittenhouse instead of trying to disarm him – then Grosskreutz would be able to mount a defense of his actions on the basis of self-defense. Grosskreutz’ lawyers would then say that he was protecting himself and others from imminent death at the hands of a man who had already killed one person, and the state would have to disprove that.
It’s an error to imagine that the actions of Rittenhouse and Grosskreutz, or their justifications, are entirely complementary, or that the defense of Rittenhouse amounts to a prosecution of Grosskreutz. The standard of proof in Rittenhouse’s defense was “beyond a reasonable doubt;” the same would apply in a putative defense of Grosskreutz, had he killed Rittenhouse. The prosecution was unable to prove to the jury that Rittenhouse’s homicides were felonious beyond a reasonable doubt. A hypothetical prosecution might likewise be able to prove that Grosskreutz’ counterfactual homicide of Rittenhouse was felonious beyond a reasonable doubt.
I think the failure of the state to make a single charge stick to Rittenhouse, whose illegal actions lead to multiple deaths, tells everybody who pulled short of killing Rittenhouse that night that they did the wrong thing. The verdict says that they had too much faith in the state to protect them, and should have taken the law into their own hands in a terminal fashion, as he did. The verdict says to Grosskreutz (and to people who may find themselves in Grosskreutz’ place in the future), that he would be better off now if he had taken that shot. MOre killings will inevitably result.
In any case, this all moves to the different standard; in the inevitable civil trials, Rittenhouse must be proven innocent by a preponderance of evidence. That’s closer to the complementary idea of justice, where defense of one side is prosecution of the other. Rittenhouse may now become a funnel for moving money from his far-right supporters to the estates of the men he killed, and the man he maimed.
Holms @26 I think you’re mostly right, but there is the concept of sin which says that people are innately evil, so maybe the antithesis of ‘people are innately good’ is the more religious perspective, or at least a belief that has been historically hijacked by religion. Religion is also very concerned with worthiness, so I agree, if the ‘innate goodness’ is religious, then ‘deservedness’ is no less religious. I think it depends on whether one believes this is caused by some supernatural force, but cause and effect is not a value judgement (thank you Hume). ;)
@Domino:
It’s rather amusing that the same sort of people who want the border between the US and Mexico abolished entirely seem to regard the Illinois/Wisconsin border as Special and keep intoning “He crossed state lines” as though this is a Really Big Deal, rather than something that millions of Americans do routinely every day.
(His home town, Antioch, pretty much straddles the border; he traveled to Kenosha to work, as he routinely did, and stayed there at a friend’s house, the night before the incident.)
Also worth noting how those keen on “defund the police” and who want the police to stay out of such neighborhoods then complain when citizens take it upon themselves to protect them instead. What to they think is going to happen in a state without policing?
@Papito:
Yes, that is what they would argue. Whether that would be accepted by the jury is unclear. At the point that Grosskreutz started interacting with Rittenhouse, he (Rittenhouse) was running towards the police lines and was not then shooting.
Grosskreutz first asked Rittenhouse “did you just shoot that guy?”, to which the reply amounted to “I didn’t do anything” , “it was self-defense” and “I’m going to the police” (said whilst jogging in the direction of police lines).
You don’t see anything wrong with that sentence?
Tim Harris,
Flowers do nicely.
@35 Thanks, a good start to my day, lol :D
Lady Mondegreen@14:
This is where I end up, too. There is a lot of blame to be placed that has nothing to do with the kid himself.
This will be one of two indulgences in pedantry for the week: people should really stop calling assault rifle any gun that is black and has a pistol grip. I don’t doubt that many people would look at my deer/predator rifles and call one military (because camo) and the other an assault rifle (because black, pistol grip, visible magazine, and folding, adjustable stock). Both are just bolt actions. My target practice rifle would definitely be called an assault rifle by most pro-gun-control shorts, and even it’s just a bolt action with a modular chassis.
I make this pedantic point, because our gun laws need reform, and people on the Right who would be persuadable often immediately shut down the moment someone calls an AR-15 an assault rifle. It sets me off, and I’m already on your side! The relatively small numbers of what could reasonably be called actual “assault rifles” (i.e., automatic rifles) in the hands of civilians is evidence that gun control can work.
This could not be better advice. Handguns and rifles are most definitely the wrong tools for that job, and shooting through walls is a real thing that really happens, even with bullets designed for maximum energy transfer. Shotguns even have the benefit of not being as loud, which is rather important if you are actually in a hurry and don’t have time to grab ear protection, which is probably most of the time in a true home defense scenario. In my limited experience, it’s the inability to swap in a fresh magazine that bothers people, as if they believe real life is like the movies.
I’d appreciate not being shot while hunting, thanks. I suspect that policemen would also prefer they not be shot for the heinous moral crime of drawing their sidearms. (And so on ad nauseam.)
I was drinking coffee, but fortunately not mid-sip when I read #35. Disaster averted.
I have at least one gun-owning hunter friend who has also said he would feel justified in shooting someone who walks into Starbucks with a gun drawn. I don’t think it’s necessary to parse exactly what is meant by “gun”, “walks”, “drawn”, and “Starbucks” to acknowledge that even gun owners may consider the presentation of a gun in an inappropriate context to be a threat and act accordingly.
I remember an incident where two would-be vigilantes were “protecting” some establishment, and they confronted each other, they each felt threatened by the other. It’s not in the least strange that this would happen.
@#34, I don’t see anything wrong with that sentence. It seems entirely factual: Rittenhouse violated numerous laws; as a consequence and in the process of violating these laws, he killed other people; the prosecution by the state failed to convict him of anything at all. The people he shot, with a gun he had no right to shoot, in a place he had no right to shoot it, remain dead or maimed.
If Rittenhouse had just hung out in the Dairy Queen parking lot with his school friends instead of going out loaded for bear, those people would likely be alive and whole. Any suggestion that Rittenhouse bears no responsibility for their death is absurd.
If it makes you feel any better (you seem to have a soft spot for young Rittenhouse), if Grosskreutz had shot Rittenhouse dead that night, I would expect Grosskreutz to be prosecuted for that, and I would hope for a conviction. Grosskreutz, like Rittenhouse, was illegally carrying a firearm at that scene. Also like Rittenhouse, Grosskreutz had a somewhat shaky claim to be trying to help as a “medic” (though the fact that Grosskreutz is a certified EMT makes his claim a bit stronger). If Grosskreutz had been the person to kill someone with that weapon, I would hope and expect he would be convicted for that action. I don’t believe he would have been, though, given the failure of the state to convict Rittenhouse.
As a consequence what I see as a prosecutorial failure, I anticipate that more people will kill each other, with the expectation that they will not be convicted. I believe that if this failure had occurred in a trial of Grosskreutz for killing Rittenhouse, that expectation would not be different.
Seems to me that going into a potentially violent situation, where you know there will most likely be armed angry people is looking for trouble, and it looks to me like Rittenhouse was looking for trouble. According to his story, one of the reasons he was in that situation because he wanted to defend private property, not his own, but just generally. He was spoiling for a confrontation. This is intentionally combative. He could have been shot and killed himself, as this was not a controlled situation, and there were many variables at play. There was a level of intent no matter how it actually played out.
Papito @41, I was posting at the same time but it seems we are of similar opinion.
What’s this “going there to render medical assistance” garbage about too? If you’re carrying a med kit you were expecting what? No injuries? Gonna heroically pull your wounded buddies out of the war zone or something? Earn a silver star? Carrying a gun with the intent to inflict bodily damage and a med kit with the intent to treat the wounded, apart from a war situation, is absurd. I’m with Nullius, it’s all in the movies.
“Prosecutor Thomas Binger asked Grosskreutz why he didn’t shoot first. “That’s not the kind of person that I am. That’s not why I was out there,” he said.”
Why the gun then?
“This will be one of two indulgences in pedantry for the week: people should really stop calling assault rifle any gun that is black and has a pistol grip.”
Yes, I know the history of the assault rifle from its MP-43, MP-44 ancestors through to the present day. I qualified on the M-14 and the M-16. Growing up around Garands, M-1 carbines, and an occasional Mauser I can appreciate the differences.
A friend has a civilian Colt semi-automatic rifle that looks exactly like a military M-16 assault rifle. On the factory barrel and receiver is stamped “M-16 A1” . There are countless ‘sporter rifles’ in circulation that take the basic barrel, reloading mechanism, and receiver from a military design, modify it so it’s no longer fully automatic, possibly slap on a different stock and call it something like a ranch rifle. Sorry, marketing be damned, but a de-tuned semi-automatic military assault rifle firing identical ammunition with a different name is still an assault rifle.
I admit that weapons like the Ruger Mini-14 are harder to classify. They fire the same 5.56mm rounds but it can be argued they were intended for the civilian market as well as police and military. Although personally having treated wounds made by a Mini-14 and an M-16 I failed to appreciate a difference.
The original AR-15 was indeed an assault rifle complete with full auto function, technically speaking.
@Papito:
No, that’s opinion, not fact (plenty of legally qualified people disagree with you). The difference between opinion and fact does matter.
No, more a soft spot for judging on the actual law, not on whether you like someone or their attitudes.
For the record, the charge that was dismissed (“possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18”) was dismissed because the firearm did not meet the legal definition of “dangerous weapon” because the barrel was longer than the definition’s limit. Colloquially, nobody would dispute that the firearm was dangerous–and it clearly was, because it killed two people. But that doesn’t matter for the legal case. We have to have agreed-upon legal definitions in law, and as it did not fit the definition, the charge was rightfully dismissed. That doesn’t make it right, but it is what it is. It could serve as the starting point for a broader conversation about sensible definitions and consistent, nationwide laws. (Maybe.)
Coel @ 47 – I don’t find it as simple as the law versus liking someone or their attitudes. That’s why I said “I got nothin.” I’m guessing at least some of the jurors felt the same way, since it took them three days to deliver a verdict. It’s a big horrible mess, whatever the law is. Also sometimes the laws are a mess, and it’s ok to say so.
@Ophelia:
Agreed. It seems that a clause intended to allow a minor to go hunting deer in the woods had the (unintended) effect of making it legal for a 17-yr-old to wander around down-town carrying a semi-automatic rifle.
On the wider point of the law, I’d support a total ban on guns (with the possible exception of single-shot, manual-reload hunting rifles).
On the three-day deliberation, one can guess that one or a couple of hold-out jurors wanted to “send a message” rather than decide according to the actual law; but Rittenhouse was entitled to the latter (however misguided, or not, his overall attitudes are), and I think that nearly everyone who has looked into the facts of the case agrees that the jury verdicts were the right ones.
twiliter
I’m no expert, but to me that sounds pretty darn close to being a war zone.
Lady M, I was actually thinking the same thing. It does resemble a war zone. The difference is soldiers have no choice but to follow orders, and are required to be combatants. Most of those people were there voluntarily, aside from the police and other first responders doing their jobs.
Pliny: I figured you were aware of the distinction, but my inner pedant would not be silenced.
What a Maroon #35: !!!
Incidentally, there is an interesting brief analysis of the Rittenhouse verdict by Ronald Sullivan,
Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, in which he speaks of the ambiguity of the self-defence laws that got KR off. He remarks at one point: ‘(P)rosecutor Thomas Binger said in his closing argument: “When the defendant provokes this incident, he loses the right to self-defense. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create.”The Wisconsin jury disagreed, and its decision may portend a similar outcome in another high-profile case in Georgia, where three white men are on trial for the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery after they claimed the Black man was a suspect in a rash of robberies. Like Rittenhouse, the three men claimed they were acting in self-defense.’
From what I have read about the incident, and the court proceedings, I think it would be a travesty if the murderers of Arbery were found not guilty, and one that should lead to a serious attempt to reform these laws, which of course differ from state to state. .
Sorry, Sullivan’s piece can be found on theconversation.com
@#47, you’re right, Coel. Law does not admit of certainty, except insofar as a trial or settlement has temporarily produced it. It is never factual to say someone has violated a law except insofar as a trial or settlement has been completed with the verdict that this is what happened. Anything else is opinion. And that fact stands only so long as it has not be overturned by an appeal, after which point it’s not a fact anymore.
This trial has produced the verdict that Rittenhouse’s possession of a dangerous weapon, which is in theory prohibited by law for children in Wisconsin, was not illegal, because the judge said that this weapon did not meet the legal definition of dangerous weapon and threw that charge out. A lawyer, or a layman, can believe he violated that law, but the words of the law are unimportant except insofar as they contribute to a verdict.
The trial also produced the verdict that Rittenhouse was not violating a curfew in Kenosha, because the judge said that municipal authorities had no standing to impose that curfew.
No other laws which one could mention (e.g. discharge of a weapon across a public street, etc.) were broken, by the same logic: no trial proved they were broken. So Rittenhouse broke no laws. Go stab your neighbor, Coel, and you will have broken no laws either, until and unless a trial proves you have done so. And it may not, especially if you can claim that your neighbor made you scared.
The law adores such a reductio. Or, perhaps lawyers do. Law, like statistics, can be tortured sufficiently to mean just about anything, if money and time are sufficient. In this case, the money was ample. In this case, the law was tortured to mean that a child can go out to hunt people with a gun, and it’s okay.
More acceptable murder – and perhaps some unacceptable murder – will certainly follow.
Tim Harris,
Apologies for detracting from the gravity of the situation.
Re the Arbery case, one distinction that may or may not make a differences is that, while it can be argued that Rittenhouse presented a general threat just by walking around with a gun, he wasn’t specifically targeting any of the people he shot; on the other hand, the McMichaels and Bryan were following Arbery–they initiated the confrontation, and so I think it can be argued that Arbery was the one acting in self-defense.
But then there’s the Zimmerman precedent….
[…] a comment by Pliny the in Between on So it was […]
@Maroon #58
I agree, the Arbery case seems very different from the Rittenhouse case.
In the Rittenhouse case he was (literally) running away as best he could. That really does make a big difference to a “self-defense” claim.
In the Arbery case, the accused were the ones who approached Arbery. Arbery did not approach them, nor initiate any interaction.
I’ve not looked into the details of that case as much as the Rittenhouse case, but it seems to me that the accused are guilty in the Arbery case, whereas acquittal was the only fair verdict in the Rittenhouse case.
Contrary to those who claim that the Rittenhouse verdict gives a licence to vigilantes, it only gives a licence to shoot at people who are chasing you down, kicking you in the head, and grabbing at your gun.
Maroon, perhaps Arbery could have been acting in self-defense, and the guys who killed him could have also, simultaneously, have been acting in self-defense.
Of course, the only person who actually gets to make that claim in court is the one who’s not dead. The killer wins twice.
Can you believe this? I mean, I’m sure you can, but still…
@rob #62
I think social media has turned us into a reactive society. Our perceptions are colored by the “sides” we identify with, and if Kyle really supported BLM, then it illustrates that no one should be made a hero or a goat based on a quick take of them.
In all this mess it has been very difficult to sort what really happened in Kenosha. Nearly every bit of media reporting has left out key details, and I don’t know how I would have voted had I been on the jury. Listening to this morning’s NY Times “The Daily” leads me to think I may have also voted to voted to acquit based on the law, and my own left-libertarian belief that the government should deliberate very carefully before imprisoning anyone let alone an 18-year-old kid. I may rule different if it were a civil court with the standard being a “preponderance of the evidence.”
When we use cases like this one as a litmus test for conservative or liberal beliefs, it’s easier to overlook what may or may not have really happened. I think he shouldn’t have gone there with a gun. I think the cops should have steered him away for his own safety, but if we go back to 2020, there were many things that the cops were doing that they shouldn’t have done such as shooting rubber bullets directly at protesters rather than bouncing them off of solid surfaces.
I don’t think I have seen very many people discuss this event without revealing their political take on this event. My first inclination was to judge him guilty, but I had to step back and look at my own biases. Jurors have to go by the strict application of the law, and how well the prosecution and defense presented evidence to make their cases in relation to the law. I like to think that if I were on the jury I would have done my best a weigh the verdict in that light. Taking three days to find for acquittal indicates to me that the jury did their best to only consider the case on its legal merits.