Friday, November 19, 2021

Justice Was Done Today.


It is joy to the just to do judgment: and dread to them that work iniquity.
  Proverbs. 21:15

Thank God Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted.  I was getting worried there for a while as the jury's deliberations dragged on.  Lengthy deliberations are not necessarily a good sign.  Lengthy deliberations can mean the jury is talking itself out of reasonable doubt.  But, in this case, it all worked out.  The jury reached exactly the right result, even in the face of political pressure and apparent intimidation tactics.  Not only Kyle Rittenhouse, but the entire right of self-defense, and the right to keep and bear arms, is vindicated.  This is critical in a world where government entities are increasingly turning against their own citizens, both by interfering directly with their lives and their rights, and by allowing others to do so with impunity, like what happened last year in Kenosha.

As a criminal defense attorney, I can honestly say that a case of self-defense doesn't get any cleaner than this one.  Rittenhouse pretty obviously used only that force that was absolutely necessary, only when it became absolutely necessary, and only against those who actually threatened him with deadly force.  In short, he did everything right all the way down the line.  In fact, he went above and beyond by trying to retreat, in a state where he had no legal duty to retreat.  I would love for a case of mine to have facts like Rittenhouse had in his -- except, of course, that, as long as there are honest prosecutors, I will never have such a case, because honest prosecutors would not move on it.  

Even for those who attempt to shift the focus onto issues not relevant to self-defense, there is no peg in this case on which to hang their hats.  The "white supremacist" angle is a non-starter: all the people Rittenhouse shot in self-defense were white, and there is no evidence that he is a "white supremacist."  The suggestion that Rittenhouse traveled "across state lines" for the purpose of insinuating himself into something that didn't concern him is a non-starter: Rittenhouse had substantial and significant ties to Kenosha and only lived about 20 miles away.  The suggestion that Rittenhouse was a hot-dog gun-slinger looking to mix it up with political opponents and make himself feel important is unsupported by the facts, especially his obvious and video-taped self-restraint; in fact, his repeated attempts to flee to the police proves that he made every effort not to shoot people.    Not one of these issues has anything to do with whether or not Rittenhouse was threatened with death or great bodily harm, and if so, whether his response was proportionate to the threat.

As far as the preposterous gun charge goes -- the one the judge threw out before the case went to the jury -- the legality of Rittenhouse's rifle is a matter of simple mathematics.  The Wisconsin statute that makes it a misdemeanor for a minor to carry a deadly weapon applies in the case of short-barreled rifles, defined as having a barrel less than 16 inches long or an overall length of less than 26 inches (Wisc. Stat. §§ 941.28, 948.60).  The prosecution had to admit to the court that Rittenhouse's rifle did not meet the definition of a short-barreled rifle.  Why, then, was this obviously inapplicable charge thrown into the mix?  I cannot read the minds of the prosecutors.  But such a charge makes sense as a rallying point for yet another irrelevant controversy, namely, the question of what a seventeen-year-old kid was doing on the scene in the first place -- a question that never got asked about the people burning down Kenosha, some of whom apparently had farther to travel to get there than Rittenhouse did.

The state's whole case against Kyle Rittenhouse seems to be based on the premise that a claim of self-defense is legitimate only in a situation where you wait until it is too late to actually defend yourself, or where you are not defending yourself against woke criminals.  It illustrates the perversity of a system that (a) allows rioters to destroy a city with impunity; and then, having created this deadly state of affairs, (b) sets its sights on a person who clearly exercises his legitimate right of self-defense against these rioters, and (c) and props the rest of us up to sympathize with the rioters who unjustly attacked him.  Justice prevailed today for Kyle Rittenhouse.

But there is still more that needs to be done.  The surviving attackers of Rittenhouse, as well as all the other arsonists and looters that took away the peace of Kenosha and the livelihoods of innocent people, ought to stand trial, as Rittenhouse should not have had to do.  All the government officials who let all this happen should be out of a job and never allowed to hold public office again.  And all the media types and liberal politicians who spent the last year defaming Kyle Rittenhouse should be sued into bankruptcy.  

In short, it is the destroyers of society who should be made to live in fear, not the honest citizens like Kyle Rittenhouse.

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