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Comment by tinyhouse | Hacker News Reader

Most of it was pretty predictable, not fascinating unless you're talking about the political aspect. For example, the dude who was shot in the arm testified and everyone was like "big win for Rittenhouse, he admitted he got shot only after he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse". Really? you have a video of the entire incident, do you need a testimony to figure it out? The one bit that was interesting though is how the shooting of Rosenbaum would be interpreted, as the video wasn't that good and it wasn't clear if self defense would qualify. But I kind of knew from the beginning after watching the videos that it's very unlikely the jury would claim it wasn't justified self defense beyond a reasonable doubt. I think without the political aspect it would've been a short and predictable trail. It's funny to me how much build up and cross interviews for an incident that was captured almost fully on video.

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The most interesting aspect for me was watching the polar opposite reactions to the same content. I was personally interested in the facts of the case, which I have been following since 8/25/2020.

> For example, the dude who was shot in the arm testified and everyone was like "big win for Rittenhouse, he admitted he got shot only after he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse".

This was a very big deal. It was on the video, but as we've seen on social media, different people see different things. The other party in said videos being trapped into admitting that Kyle was right to shoot him was vidicating, both legally and personally for everyone who was rooting for Kyle.

Before anyone gets horrified at my views on the case, Kyle was a good kid, being dumb and idealistic, trying to help, and protecting himself when that went south. I wish he hadn't stayed out that night, I wish his assailants had valued their lives more highly, and I hope that this will be a good example for everyone: don't put yourself in danger unless you're prepared for the consequences, and secondarily, fuck around and find out.

I think many people missed the point of the whole self defense argument. In Michigan, you can't claim self defense if you unreasonably put yourself or others in danger. To me, the part that made this case a tossup, was whether or not you believe it is reasonable to go out into public at night, while there is civil unrest, unnecessarily, carrying a loaded rifle.

I find that completely ridiculous and unreasonable. Regardless of one's technical right to do so.

But some people done agree and think it is totally acceptable to do so.

The Rittenhouse shootings were in Wisconsin, not Michigan. The jury instructions[1] have no law like what you're describing.

The self-defense standard explained by the judge is simply that the defendant must believe that the level of force used was necessary to terminate an imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm, and the defendant's belief must be reasonable.

However, "a person who engages in unlawful conduct of a type likely to provoke others to attack, and who does provoke an attack, is not allowed to use.. self-defense against that attack." The judge ruled that it was legal for him to be carrying a gun that night, so while carrying a gun might provoke others, it's not unlawful conduct that provokes others.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/17/us/rittenhous...

> completely ridiculous and unreasonable

Maybe, but it's also legal in Wisconsin.

..., while there is civil unrest, unnecessarily, carrying a loaded rifle.

are you referring to going out as unnecessary or the carrying a loaded rifle being unnecessary?

> This was a very big deal. It was on the video, but as we've seen on social media, different people see different things.

So now people on social media are the standard? People on social media are not objective. They see what they want to see, based on the team they are rooting for. There is a video showing the exact moment of the shooting and facts are facts.

I agree with your last paragraph.

> People on social media are not objective.

Neither are juries. Trials are about feeding the Jury the story they need to come to a specific conclusion. Removing any possible doubt from that story is vital.

I agree, I was very confused how the Grosskreutz testimony was so incredible. It was obvious from the video.

Should the state have even pursued that charge? Probably not, but that has nothing to do with that testimony blowing anyone away.

It's an all or nothing deal. If the first death was murder, then all that followed were likely murder too.

Then why weren't the charges dropped? Is it acceptable to put someone through a trial when the outcome is a predictable aquittal?

Prosecutors are supposed to bring charges based on “the interests of justice.” I can’t say that they actually meet that standard. They famously bring harsh charges and try to negotiate plea deals. They also famously get creative with how to interpret different laws.

There is the concept of malicious prosecution ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_prosecution ), but that only applies when the prosecutor pursues a case without proof of even the basic elements of the crime. If they filed charges that they were incredibly unlikely to prove (which is what I heard from all the commenters on this case: “the prosecution has a hard case to make” or something similar), then they spent a lot of time and money, caused somebody to spend a lot of money for the defendant, etc., but they didn’t cross the line into malicious prosecution.

Rittenhouse was charged with violating a law that only applies if you're younger than 17 years old or have a rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches. Since both of those things are trivial to disprove (the prosecutor admitted that Rittenhouse was 17 at the time and the rifle was longer than 16"), would that be considered malicious prosecution?

I would love to learn the answer to this: if some charges are arguably justified, but others aren’t, can you claim malicious prosecution for the ones that aren’t? I would think so.

Unfortunately, for this specific case, I don’t think it qualifies. The judge only dismissed the charge because he couldn’t write clear jury instructions for it ( https://apnews.com/article/why-did-judge-drop-kyle-rittenhou... ). I think that could be enough to say “we brought the charge because we honestly thought it applied; the confusion wasn’t malice, it was just difficulty understanding a convoluted law.”

I don’t know about Wisconsin, and I don’t know if Rittenhouse has some way to afford bringing a malicious prosecution lawsuit or some other lawsuit against Kenosha. I get the feeling that kind of reaction (followed by a negotiated settlement) is more common in some parts of the country than others.

As I mentioned, the first shooting and killing of Rosenbaum wasn't a clear justified self defense based on the video, so it justified the trail. Also the politics around the case played a role.

The prosecutor had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was NOT self defense. Good luck proving a subjective negative. After I learned that particular I just awaited the official aquittal.

I thought that "self defense" was something you had to prove yourself, where you've admitted to committing a crime (killing someone) but that you had a specific circumstance that mitigated the charge.

I assumed it was similar to a "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea, where you admit you committed a crime but there are special circumstances (that you have to prove) that mitigate it. You can't just stay silent the entire time and force the prosecutor to prove you were insane - you have to actually provide some evidence you were insane.

Is this not true?

That's correct, it's an affirmative defense. You admit to the crime, but assert that you were privileged to take an otherwise illegal action.

As I understand it, it differs depending on state law.

This is totally possible—if Rosenbaum had killed Rittenhouse, he would have been laughed out of court on a self-defense claim.

People claim self-defense all the time, it rarely works. In this case, where the clear, legally defined standard of self-defense was met, Kyle walked.

Did you follow the (nearly simultaneous) trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery? That prosecutor didn’t seem to have too much trouble at all proving that particular negative — those guys are all going away for life.

That case would be the equivalent if Grosskreutz killed Rittenhouse and tried to claim self defense.

An alternative equivalent would be if Arbery was successful at taking away the firearm and killing his attackers.

What? Not at all. Arbery attempted to gain control of the gun and was killed, and the defense attempted to claim self-defense. I was responding to the claim that self-defense is some kind of automatic not-guilty verdict. It evidently is not.

Arbery, like Rittenhouse, was not the aggressor. Rittenhouse had a firearm to defend himself, Arbery did not. If Arbery was successful in taking the firearm from his assailants, self-defense would be a very viable claim.

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