JUSTICE DONE FOR KYLE RITTENHOUSE



Justice was done in Kenosha, Wisconsin on November 19, 2021. As a criminal defense attorney, I could not see any valid reason to prosecute Kyle Rittenhouse. He had a gun he was legally entitled to carry. He had a right to be where he was when he was attacked. He was not the one making threats. He was actually helping put out fires before he was attacked.

One white guy was attacked by three other white guys, all strangers to him. One chased him and threatened to kill him. One hit him on the head and knocked him down with a skateboard. The other pointed a loaded gun to his head.
Three men were in Kenosha to do evil. One man in Kenosha was there to help keep it from burning to the ground.
It was the prosecution’s burden to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rittenhouse did NOT act in self-defense.
It was the prosecution’s burden to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Kyle Rittenhouse had NO reason to fear any one of these men could cause him great bodily harm.
This they could not do.
There was a lot of pressure on the jurors to convict, regardless of the facts. The media demanded a conviction. Our President and Vice President demanded a conviction. Anti-gun advocates demanded a conviction.
Whatever happened to the anti-bullying movement? Clearly, Kyle Rittenhouse was bullied and threatened with death and/or great bodily harm.
I was just pleased that the right of self-defense was preserved today.
There are a couple of problems people in Kyle’s position face. One, prosecutors invariably charge the winner of a fight when the loser bleeds, ignoring self-defense. Two, if you use a gun to defend yourself, even to scare your aggressor, you are going to make the other guy mad enough that he or his tribe will demand you be charged with a felony. One Idaho county that I know of will bring charges against you if you defend yourself with a gun, and force you to gamble your fate with a jury. Use a gun, and they make you prove your innocence.
I have seen this happen to numerous clients who have been charged with brandishing a weapon, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and even murder when they were in fact defending themselves. Just because one man loses such an encounter, that does not mean the winner needs to be punished at all.
One final wrench that gets thrown into criminal trials: media coverage. “When it bleeds, it leads,” goes one cliche about which stories get the most media coverage. Some prosecutors get pushed into prosecuting cases all the way to trial merely because there is so much media coverage they feel the public demands it, even if justice demands they drop charges.
What we all need to remember is that each case must be decided upon its own facts. Every person has the right to travel where he or she desires in public. No one has to run away if attacked. And if someone gets hurt or even dies in a fight, you the juror must presume that the other person in the fight acted 100% lawfully. You will hear all kinds of evidence over a week or two, but these cases come down to only one question: Can the state prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant had NO reason to believe the defendant was going to try to inflict great bodily harm or death? If they can’t do this, the defendant must be acquitted. That is the only fair result.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Things Lawyers Can't Tell Jurors

Image
 It is a trial lawyer's job to educate jurors, and tell them what they need to know in order to decide cases. Despite this, there are many things, true things, that lawyers are not allowed to tell jurors directly in statements to the jury or indirectly through testimony of their witnesses. Lawyers know these things, though, and I thought you might like to know some of things. #1. A lawyer can't tell the jurors anything that happened during settlement negotiations. He cannot let the jurors know, when asking them to make the defendant pay his client $100,000 that the defendant agreed to pay him $80,000 prior to the trial. The reason for this is that you want settlement negotiations to be very open. You don't want to damage a negotiation session because someone is afraid that what they say will get repeated to a jury if you don't strike a deal. #2 In Idaho, a lawyer can't tell the jurors that the defendant has insurance. In many other states, he can. Bec...
Read more

OBAMA APPOINTEE DENIES GIULIANI ABILITY TO DEFEND HIMSELF, RESULTS IN $148 MILLION JUDGMENT

Image
In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 protests, Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay over $148 million in damages to two Georgia election workers named by the former New York mayor.  What has not been explained to the general public is that there was never any trial concerning whether Mr. Giuliani had actually slandered or libeled these two persons.   In the case of Giuliani, the two Georgia election workers listed as plaintiffs in the suit against Giuliani sued him for saying they engaged in what amounted to election fraud.  They are allowed to ask the defendant ex-mayor for documents relevant to their suit and to his defense. These women brought their case against Giuliani in a jurisdiction that is heavily populated with Democrats.  They could have sued in their home state, Georgia, but did not. They wanted a jury pool of anti-Trump democrats, so they sued in Washington, D.C. They managed to get an incredibly biased Barack Obama-appointed, anti-Trump judge....
Read more

Man Framed by Prosecutor Released After 29 Years in Prison Seeking Lawsuit

Image
19 year old, Charise Kamps, was found raped and strangled to death in her apartment in June 1980. Ralph Armstrong told the police that both of them were at the apartment alone doing cocaine before leaving to go see friends around 9:30 pm. Police said that they learned that Armstrong owed Kamp's boyfriend $400 and witnesses saw Armstrong handing Kamps money that night. However, the money was not found in the apartment, and Armstrong deposited $315 in his bank the next day.The defense argued that he got the money from his brother. One of the neighbors saw a lean, muscular man about 5 feet 5 inches tall with long, dark hair drive up to the apartment. Before the identification process, the police had the witness hypnotized. He was shown a photograph of Armstrong, and After being hypnotized, the witness changed the height of the man he saw. Later at a lineup to have the witness select the man he saw, he chose Armstrong. The other people in the lineup were police officers in wigs...
Read more