Verdict returned in Rittenhouse trial

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(CNN)President Joe Biden said Friday he stands by the not-guilty verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, saying the jury system of trial in the United States works and must be respected.

"Look, I stand by what the jury has concluded," he said. "The jury system works, and we have to abide by it."

Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people and shot another during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was acquitted Friday of first-degree intentional homicide and four other felony charges. The panel of five men and seven women deliberated more than 25 hours over the past four days in a closely watched case. The verdict cannot be appealed.

The President made the comments upon returning to the White House after a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that lasted more than five hours, where he received a routine physical and a colonoscopy.

"I just heard a moment ago," Biden said, when asked about Rittenhouse being found not guilty on all counts. "I didn't watch the trial."

In a statement later Friday afternoon, Biden acknowledged that the verdict in the trial "will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included." He said that everyone "must acknowledge that the jury has spoken."
In a statement released by the White House Friday afternoon, Biden said he "ran on a promise to bring Americans together, because I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us."

"I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us. I know that we're not going to heal our country's wounds overnight, but I remain steadfast in my commitment to do everything in my power to ensure that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, under the law," the statement reads.

Biden also encouraged protesters to "express their views peacefully, consistent with the rule of law."

"Violence and destruction of property have no place in our democracy," the statement adds.

Self-defense laws in at least 23 states (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee West Virginia and Wisconsin) provide civil immunity under certain self- defense circumstances.

Hopefully the prosecution will face sanctions for some of their actions here (constitutional violations, withholding evidence, etc.).

Regardless of what people think about their effect on this case, if allowed to go unchecked, those same actions could result in innocent people being jailed as a result of prosecutors being allowed to repeat such actions and them going unchallenged, or people who commit serious crimes being freed as a result of mistrials resulting from such activities being challenged.

Perhaps it's not surprising that activists and Democratic politicians would reflexively cite white supremacy in a trial outcome that disappoints Team Blue. More troubling is the response to the verdict from an organization that should know better: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In a statement reacting to the verdict, ACLU-Wisconsin Interim Executive Director Shaadie Ali lamented the "deep roots of white supremacy" in Kenosha that prevented Rittenhouse from being "held responsible for his actions."

"Kyle Rittenhouse was a juvenile who traveled across state lines on a vigilante mission, was allowed by police to roam the streets of Kenosha with an assault rifle and ended up shooting three people and killing two," said Brandon Buskey, director of the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project. "These are the simple, tragic facts. His acquittal comes after an ACLU investigation exposing how Kenosha law enforcement used violence against protesters and drove them toward white militia groups, in ways that escalated tensions and almost certainly led to these shootings."

In a Twitter thread, the ACLU complained that Rittenhouse was not held accountable for his "conscious decision to travel across state lines and injure one person and take the lives of two people protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police."

Of course, it is not illegal to travel across state lines; the fact that Rittenhouse wandered outside the boundaries of his home and entered a neighboring municipality was irrelevant to the case. The jury did not agree with—and the facts of the case did not support—the claim that his decision to shoot three people was "conscious" in the sense that it was premeditated. He argued that he rationally believed his life was in imminent danger, and the surviving shooting victim provided testimony that supported this argument.

One might have expected that an organization dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties would not so cavalierly take the side of prosecutors against the concept of self-defense. In the past, the ACLU has done terrific work shining a light on prosecutorial misconduct—the tremendous power the state has to stack the deck against defendants. The ACLU purports to believe that all people, even the guilty, deserve due process protections. The organization is evidently outraged by the verdict: Is the ACLU outraged that the prosecutor tried to argue that Rittenhouse exercising his Miranda rights was evidence of his guilt?

As he drove out of the court room in a moment he thinks the glare of the camera is not on him he looks remarkably sorry and remorseful for all the harm he created, the families left to mourn his killing spree and tax payers money he wasted



Another Zimmerman

Looks like a pretty normal reaction to being acquitted after having been on trial for your life to me.

As he drove out of the court room in a moment he thinks the glare of the camera is not on him he looks remarkably sorry and remorseful for all the harm he created, the families left to mourn his killing spree and tax payers money he wasted

Another Zimmerman

It was self-defence.
Joe Biden trusts the jury's decision.
Why don't you?

Just an observation, not a judgement

Looks like a pretty normal reaction to being acquitted after having been on trial for your life to me.

BTW, I couldn't reply to your PM.
Any idea why?

MSNBC interviewing lawyers on what's next for the Huber and Rosenbaum family. Looks like all avenues are exhausted.

Questions will be raised about the prosecution who I can only compare to the prosecutors who royally bungled the OJ Simpson case.

Nicholas Sandmann reaches out to Kyle Rittenhouse
https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/11/17/n ... sue-media/

First hint that Sandmann became a teen millionaire from suing the Washington post and encourages Rittenhouse to do the same.