Kyle Rittenhouse trial

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CHICAGO (CBS) — For the second day in a row, a member of the jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has been dismissed, this time for medical reasons.

A young woman on the jury asked to be excused for pregnancy-related issues, and was dismissed from the jury Friday morning.

I did not watch this not yet. Which side is winning the state or the defense?

Kyle Rittenhouse is presumed innocent, and that means that his shooting of the three men, and the reasonableness of his conduct otherwise the night of August 25, 2020, is presumed to be justified as lawful self-defense, unless the state can disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, the prosecution doesn’t have to disprove Kyle’s claim of self-defense in its entirety. The prosecution merely needs to disprove any one of the four elements that make up that claim of self-defense. These four elements are cumulative—meaning, every one of the four is required—so if even a single one is disproven beyond a reasonable doubt, Kyle’s legal justification of self-defense collapses entirely.

To those who are new to self-defense law, or would just like a quick refresh on the concepts of the elements of self-defense, here are those four elements, and how the state would typically be expected to disprove them.



And, of course, whichever element (or elements) the state sought to target in its attack on Kyle’s claim of self-defense, it would need to disprove beyond any reasonable doubt.

This is necessarily the mission of Assistant DA Binger in this prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse, and how that mission would be accomplished. And, it needs to be accomplished during the State’s presentation of evidence—obviously, after the state has rested and the defense gets its turn, it’s not as if the attack by the defense is going to make the state’s narrative stronger.

So, as I listen to the State present its witnesses, and subject them to direct examination or questioning, what I’m looking for is the building out of that narrative of guilt, that destruction of self-defense, the substantive attack on one or more of those elements.

What is this testimony, this line of argument, attacking exactly? Innocence, Imminence, Proportionality, or Reasonableness? That’s really all that matters. Any testimony or argument that doesn’t have one of those elements as its target, that does not substantively undermine and disprove one of those elements beyond a reasonable doubt, is nothing but wasted effort and time.

There are too many questions.

A huge question is whether the judge will greatly narrow Rittenhouse's self-defense and require he "exhausted every other reasonable means to escape from or otherwise avoid those possible consequences", because Rittenhouse was illegally carrying a weapon.

This would give the jury more leeway to find him guilty.

The one person he shot ran at him and threw a plastic bag, perhaps it could be argued it scared him/he was convinced he was going to be attacked and so he shot. But to then continue and fire three more times does seem to have taken it beyond self defense.

But then there is the question what was a teenager doing there playing at military medic in the first place?

The one person he shot ran at him and threw a plastic bag, perhaps it could be argued it scared him/he was convinced he was going to be attacked and so he shot. But to then continue and fire three more times does seem to have taken it beyond self defense.

But then there is the question what was a teenager doing there playing at military medic in the first place?

He didn't just run up and throw a bag, he chased him into some parked cars and tried to snatch is rifle away, and four shots is nothing, they were fired at point blank range in less than a second, which is basically instinctive. Watch the video, it's widely available and has been posted multiple times in this thread.

As far as I saw he chased him and threw the bag, didn't seem like he got close enough to try and take the rifle. Either way its all up to the courts now.

He didn't just run up and throw a bag, he chased him into some parked cars and tried to snatch is rifle away, and four shots is nothing, they were fired at point blank range in less than a second, which is basically instinctive. Watch the video, it's widely available and has been posted multiple times in this thread.

The prosecution showed the jury the video of Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse with a bag. Whatever excuses the defense come up with, Rittenhouse's beady eyes would not have seen him armed. His over-active imagination saw the protestors as the "enemy" so in his mind he felt empowered to shoot to kill (even cops don't have that power). Critically Rittenhouse knew he was carry a lethal weapon and the consequences of using it (He can;t use his age to hide behind that excuse).

Witness testimony published an hour ago have supported the consensus that despite Rosenbaum's belligerence, nobody present saw him as a threat.
https://apnews.com/article/kyle-rittenh ... 9f779b0057
That doesn't bode well for the defense case trying to paint Rittenhouse as being attacked requiring to use a lethal weapon he was never legally allowed to be parading around in public.

If any other person walked around in public with a loaded weapon and used it they would automatically be charged with murder. Rittenhouse's defense are skirting around the obvious.

All the defense needs is "reasonable doubt."

Having watched Friday's portion of the trial until they went to lunch, the witnesses for the prosecution gave the impression of assisting the defence more than the prosecution.

The discussion about character evidence regarding Mr Huber that the prosecution wanted to introduce before lunch (objections over which caused lunch to be taken at the time that it was) and regarding which legal discussions were held following the lunch break certainly didn't go well for the prosecution when the defence outlined the character evidence they wished to present (rather interesting, including a novel method he had used to have his brother tidy a room) as rebuttal - at which point the prosecution decided not to proceed along this line.

Another interesting witness today was the first of the morning, Jason Lackowski. Jason had previously been a United States Marine Corps infantry rifleman, and was friendly with Ryan Balch. He, like Ryan, had been present in the company of Kyle on August 25 in Kenosha, and had his own share of interactions with Joseph Rosenbaum in particular.

Highlights of Lackowski’s testimony included his description of Rosenbaum as acting very belligerently, asking people bluntly to shoot him, making “fasle steps” as if attacking, trying to incite violence, and shouting the N-word at a Black Lives Matter rally.

On direct, ADA Binger went though his usual weapons laundry-list question: Did Rosenbaum have a gun? No. Knife? No. Bat? No. Club? No.

Did you personally feel threatened by Rosenbaum, asked Binger, and the USMC rifleman who at the scene had been armed with an AR rifle, a knife, and a can of CS spray, as well as in the company of similarly armed friends, answered that he had not felt personally threatened.

This turned around to bite the State when the defense got to Lackowski on cross examination, however.

Chirafisi asked him, you were never alone one-on-one with Rosenbaum were you? No. You had support with you? Yes. Rosenbaum had never threatened to kill him? No. Never told him, if I get you alone, I’ll f’ing kill you? No.

What if, Chirafisi asked, you had been alone, and Rosenbaum had threatened to kill you under that circumstance, and you saw him charging you at full speed, screaming “F-you!” and fighting to take your gun from you, would you feel then that he was a threat?

Lackowski: “Oh, yeah, a threat to my life, yes.”

Yes.

However, it seemed like the car dealer's son was lieing, and that helped the prosecution by making it seem like Rittenhouse and crew were not asked to come to the car dealership.

Having watched Friday's portion of the trial until they went to lunch, the witnesses for the prosecution gave the impression of assisting the defence more than the prosecution.