I am no criminal lawyer. At least not of the street crimes variety. About all I know about are money crimes against the government. But I had a feeling that the Kyle Rittenhouse case was going to be tough to prosecute when they charged it a year or so ago. So I can’t say that I was terribly surprised when the jury acquitted him of all charges stemming from the deadly shooting that fateful night in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He was barely 18 at the time of the incident. He had arrived in Kenosha from his home in Illinois during a time of racial unrest, packing an AR 15 and an expressed desire to help “defend property.” This despite the fact that he wasn’t from there and that his presence there was pretty much unbidden by any of the locals.
In so doing he became both the poster child for white privilege and vigilantism on one side. For armed citizen patriots doing their duty to support law and and order and to protect property from the mob on another.
Kyle was lucky. If you’re going to be a poster boy, be one for the side that has a lot of money. And lots was raised by right wing groups for his defense. Able counsel was hired to represent him. He was prepared well. Hell, they had enough money to “focus group” two trial scenarios; one in which he testified and one in which he took the 5th. He came out better with the mock jury when he testified than when he did not. He also had investigators and a jury consultant.
Think he would have had these sort of resources with a public defender? If the answer is “Are you kidding me?” then you answered correctly.
He also got lucky in that Wisconsin does not have the crime of manslaughter on its books. Off the top of my head, manslaughter is basically defined as “acting in reckless disregard for the value of human life.” Or as one of my law school professors memorably put it, the difference between negligence, gross negligence and manslaughter is the difference between “a fool, a damned fool and a goddamned fool.” And I think many of us might say that only a goddamned fool would have inserted himself into a riot in another town in another state while armed to the teeth.
But it’s apparently not against the law to be a goddamned fool in Wisconsin.
He also got lucky in that it is vastly easier to sell a self defense theory when you killed two of the potential witnesses against you and the third one pulled a gun on you. It’s also a fortunate thing that Rittenhouse is of the Caucasian persuasion and not only because this fact instantly made him less likely to get rung up by the system. A black man bearing an assault weapon would have been shot 5 minutes after entering the city limits under these facts.
At the end of the day, it is not much more complicated than a mostly white jury in an open carry state refused to send an 18 year old kid to prison based on the facts and the jury instructions on the law.
Did the jury get it right? Well. They didn’t get it wrong. The outcome is defensible as a matter of law.
Was it justice? That’s a far more elusive question.
And, the Rittenhouse case is ample proof, once again, that money can buy a defense.
So. Where do we go from here? Will the outcome in this case empower disaffected white folks, drunk with the notion that they are “good guys with guns” to take the law into their own hands? What does it say about our country that a nobody punk like Kyle Rittenhouse is viewed as a hero in some quarters? What will be the response of law enforcement going forward? And where was Kyle’s mother all this time? I’m around 18 year old boys a lot. There generally is no filter between their brains and their mouths. Are you telling me that these grandiose hero delusions that evidently compelled him never leaked out of her son at any time? There was nobody in this boy’s life that could set him on a better path?
I don’t have any answers to these questions.
But this much I do know.
Kyle Rittenhouse may have been found not guilty as a matter of law. But he is not innocent.
There is a distinction.
And he’s no hero.
