Readers (especially those who followed the complete trial, which I did not): What is your prediction regarding the most likely verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case?
I probably shouldn’t offer an opinion because I did not watch any of the videos from the courthouse. However, since I’m asking you to guess, maybe I am obligated also to put forth my best guess…. guilty of at least one count.
My rationale for predicting a guilty verdict is not based on any of the facts in the case nor any evidence or argument that was presented at trial. My prediction is based purely on the psychology of compliance. One thing that we’ve learned from the 2020 lockdowns and the recent elections (national and California governor recall) is that Americans are generally compliant with whatever the government tells them to do. The non-compliant spirit among at least some young Americans in the 1960s is dead. In the specific case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the government is telling a group of Americans to convict him and therefore I think that he will be convicted.
Related:
I did not follow the case that closely, but I completely agree with the “guilty of at least one count.” prediction for the same reasons. Given it’s taking days for the jury to decide, the prediction becomes almost a certainty. He may win on appeal, though.
I read that at least 2 jurors expressed fear for their safety in case of Kyle Rittenhouse being acquitted. Should any guilty verdict were issued it should be appealed.
my guess is no verdict. hung jury! (just like what we should do to the jan 6th insurrectionist)
The QAnon Shaman was jailed for 41 months (with credit for 10 months already served).
Fazal, Grab em by the pussy!
I was predicting a clean acquittal, but now that the jury has been deliberating 3 days, I think that a mixed verdict is more likely. Not murder, but guilty of some lesser manslaughter charge.
My prediction is a hung jury, at which point the judge will declare a mistrial due to the state not providing the defense with the high resolution version of their key video evidence (among other misdeeds). But he will let himself off the hook too by declaring it without prejudice, so we can have this discussion again in a year or so when the case is retried.
Either a hung jury leading to a mistrial without prejudice, or guilty on at least one lesser charge.
I am not following the case very closely but it was quite astonishing to see some people give chase after a guy in possession of a rifle. Normal behavior would be to run away unless one is getting paid to give chase (e.g. military or police).
“Many of the Wehrmacht’s soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, especially against Poland and France — in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. ”
Some speculate that drug withdrawal syndrome is what really got Wehrmacht run fast back west after the battle of Kursk.
https://amphetamines.com/nazi/
If I’ve learned anything from listening to the conservatives for the past 10 years, people who “run towards the fire” and “put themselves in harms way” to thwart “active shooters” are American heroes and patriots!
Thanks señor P. for keeping me current with what the conservatives up to.
R. Cialdini https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Influence%3A-Science-and-Practice-Cialdini/c67faff657c0a353eb92a53e327685ddf2de43f7
I am predicting guilty at least one or two accounts. I do think he wishes he could turn back time and I also feel like he is kinda of remorseful but regardless he does need to be held accountable. I never once did hear him apologize or send regards to the people who lost their love ones. I have no idea what to think. I am so back and forth. I hope the verdict comes out today so we don’t have to wait till next week or even after Thanksgiving.but it’s good that they are taking their time because obviously they are analyzing and going through the jury instructions carefully. A mans life is at stake.
I don’t think any of the violent thugs Kyle shot was loved by anyone.
Au contraire, averros!
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/us/kyle-rittenhouse-shooting-victims-trial/index.html says
Kariann Swart, Rosenbaum’s fiancée, testified they were both homeless when they met in 2019 and were living in a motel at the time Rosenbaum was killed. “We just spent a lot of time talking, getting to know one another, and laughing and joking around. He was a very animated person like that,” she said.
[this was regarding the man who had previously been convicted of raping boys aged 9-11]
Huber, who was in the crowd of protesters with his girlfriend, … Huber was “completely indescribable” and stood by his beliefs and convictions, Gittings, his girlfriend, said last year. “He was an incredibly intelligent person, literally the smartest person I’ve ever met,” Gittings said. “He knew exactly what was at risk for him chasing down somebody with a weapon.”
People who talk about Huber talk about “a kid who wanted to help people,” the attorney added.
————
These victims will occupy places of honor in the pantheon of BLM martyrs.
averros: a thought experiment… suppose that Hunter Biden painted a group portrait of the three victims. How many Democrats would eagerly pay $100,000 or more for a print? That’s the minimum number of people who love and honor the memory of these three fallen heroes of BLM.
The Jury will decide to send Wayne LaPierre to prison, despite the fact that he’s not on trial. I expect a mixed verdict. Guilty of at least one count and it will go to appeal, in fact any guilty verdict on any count will.
Well I was wrong. LaPierre is not going to prison and neither is Rittenhouse. Found out literally 30 seconds after I hit POST. And that’s the correct outcome.
Kyle Rittenhouse is found not guilty on all charges.
Roger is proved to be a hesitant prophet apprentice.
You need a vision to believe that facts, reason and law would prevail in this world. Was not obvious to me.
Kudos Roger!
Since I am always wrong, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the jury’s verdict. But I am still a little surprised. On the one hand, it is not an obviously good idea to use a skateboard to attack a person holding an AR-15. On the other hand, for non-gun people, it is surprising that it is legal to walk around a mostly peaceful BLM protest while holding an AR-15. And, on the third hand, given the American descent into lawlessness during the summer of 2020, it is not an obviously good idea to leave the house without an AR-15. If the police are allowing cities to be burned, what else might they allow?
I still think the most sensible solution is for peace-loving Americans to move to Florida where people aren’t generally enraged!
In most states minors are not allowed to poses handguns but allowed to use long rifles as early as 12, for hunting, training and self-defense. Sorry Kyle Rittenhouse and his father followed the letter of law, unlike “peaceful protester” felons armed with concealed handguns.
Openly carrying a long – barrelled rifle is a based of “bear arms” in 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights. I do not know Wisconsin laws but in many even dark blue states it is allowed to carry without magazine inserted and insert the magazine in case of need to defend oneself; Wisconsin may differ. So Kyle Rittenhouse and his father followed the spirit of the law as well.
Rifle being AR-15 with (single in Kyle’s possession) magazine made little difference vs let’s say WWI Springfield or WWII M1 because Kyle Rittenhouse fired few but precise shots that were enough to stop under influence rage of the crowd of attackers. But I think that the looks of long 30 round magazine contributed to rapid sobering of the looters. AR-15 is also better controllable and generically has less penetration then Springfield and M1 leading to no bystander casualties.
It is not gun it is who uses it.
Prosecution was totally disregarding both local sate laws and US Constitution; it was scary to see such lawlessness for those who supposed to protect the public, not the rioters.
Next time we may find them throwing molotov cocktails at soft civilian targets.
@LSI is quite correct: “AR-15 is also better controllable and generically has less penetration then Springfield and M1 leading to no bystander casualties.”
Contrary to popular belief, the AR-15 .556 NATO cartridge is not a particularly powerful or heavy round. It was chosen for that reason, so that the rifle and its ammunition would be much lighter and more controllable, particularly under fully-automatic fire, but also because of the over-penetration of the much larger and more powerful rounds fired by the rifles he mentions, as well as the M14. It is a small, light bullet (less than 1/4″ in diameter, .223 inches, and usually 55 grains or 3.56 grams) that is pushed to a high velocity, which falls off very quickly with distance. The bullets are designed to *tumble* and *fragment* when they hit tissue and that is principally what conveys their lethality. This is a very basic overview – there are a lot of AR-15 bullets available – but that was the general idea: to give the infantry soldier a lot more rounds at their disposal with less weight, optimized for closer-quarters fighting, not so much taking out the guy 400 yards away across the countryside with a precisely-aimed shot.
If you watch John Hickok’s recent overview of Vietnam War-era U.S. light weaponry, he fires the M16-A1 in fully automatic mode first. You can see how much smaller and more controllable it is when compared to the larger rifles next to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYxTrcBV73s&t=7s
That and the modularity and “machine replicable” standardized construction were what the rifle’s designer, Eugene Stoner, was looking for in the late 1950s when he started working on it, at first in his garage. It is also why the rifles are so popular with people who like to sport shoot and customize their guns – almost all the pieces and parts can be interchanged or swapped out, and the rifle comes apart into modular assemblies very easily. AR does not stand for “Assault Rifle.” It stands for ArmaLite, the original manufacturer. (Maybe it should more properly have been dubbed the AL-15.)
Phil retains his title as the Nostradamus of Maskachusetts — first the brilliant call in the 2016 election, Hil by a landslide, then lots of prescient stock market picks and now this.
Jack: My opinions are still useful. People can just bet in the opposite direction and win about 90 percent of the time.
I only know the Wikipedia article (which seems surprisingly balanced) and a bit of conservative media reporting. If the article (as of Nov 20th) is roughly correct, I would probably have voted “not guilty” based on the existing laws.
Having said that, I do not like the fact that 17 year olds can carry rifles and act as peacekeepers in chaotic situations with many weapons. As it happens, older men do not like 17 year olds acting as authorities. This is likely the reason why the first casualty went after the youngest one, whereas others with weapons had no issues:
“A former marine testified on November 5 that Rosenbaum had taunted him and other armed men before the shootings; he also said that he did not consider Rosenbaum a threat.”
While I don’t suggest abolishing the 2nd amendment, perhaps it would be wise to have a law that people under 25 who wish to act as a peacekeeper can only operate in groups of at least three together with more experienced people like the marine.
I do not like the treatment of Grosskreutz in the conservative media. According to the article, he thought that Rittenhouse was an active shooter. This shows one of the flaws of many guns in a chaotic situation: Two people can think that the other one is an active shooter, so who has the right to self defense?
He also spoke to Rittenhouse. Did Rittenhouse ever communicate or fire a warning shot?
Obviously this is all armchair commentary, but if one wants to go into a critical situation with many weapons involved one should have rigorous training (he did have training not to kill bystanders, but did he have deescalation skills?).
@Anonymous: I’ll leave most of your questions to others but inre: warning shots. Despite what Joe Biden has advised people to do (…”get a shotgun and fire a couple of blasts off the balcony” or somesuch nonsense) people who understand lethal force laws know that you should *never* fire a warning shot. There is no such thing under the law. The instant you fire a gun in the direction of another person, you have used Lethal Force. At that point, if such force was unjustified – even if the bullet misses – you can, and in most situations will – be charged with assault with a deadly weapon and/or attempted murder.
In fact, if you discharge a firearm in the air – not aiming at anyone or anything! – and the bullet comes down and hits someone a mile away (and some rifle bullets can maintain enough kinetic energy to kill at that distance, but not the AR-15 which has an effective lethal range of about 500 yards under most circumstances) that is *also* your fault and you are going to prison.
See Massad Ayoob. This video is a bit dated but accurate.
https://youtu.be/-j4PS_8R5IE?t=57
I wasn’t inside his head, but I think it’s plausible that Rittenhouse understood that definition. No warning shots.
Here’s Joe Biden recalling how he advised his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, MD, to break the law.
Alex: Thank you, I didn’t know that. Indeed the Wikipedia page states that one person firing a shot in the air has been charged ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosha_unrest_shooting#Other_litigation).
I found the answer to my other most important question: Rittenhouse had in fact responded to Grosskreutz (https://abcnews.go.com/US/kyle-rittenhouse-homicide-trial-key-takeaways-day/story?id=81034238):
“Rittenhouse continued to run while answering, “I’m going to get the police,” according to the video.”
(Huber was shot after this conversation, so Grosskreutz could still reasonably assume an active shooter.)
“ Two people can think that the other one is an active shooter, so who has the right to self defense?”
Interestingly, they both do. If GG had killed Rittenhouse and then after the fact found out that he wasn’t an active shooter and been charged with murder, GG could also have used self defense as a defense, and probably successfully.
Why did Rittenhouse not fire a warning shot: that would have been illegal, and he probably would have been convicted for it. Self defense is all or nothing. If you reasonably believe you are about to be killed, you have the right to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. If you do not believe you are about to be killed, you have no right to do anything. Firing a warning shot clearly shows that you do not believe you are about to be killed; if you think you have time to fire a warning shot, you don’t think you’re about to die. Same thing when people say things like “he should have shot to maim and not kill.” That’s another sign that one is not truly fearing for their life, when they think a maiming shot is an option. These are established legal principles of self defense, they’re interesting to learn about if you want to understand the legal basis of the the ruling.
@Anonymous: You’re welcome. That Ayoob video is almost two hours long and covers a lot of ground. I believe it is from a course he conducted for law enforcement officers, criminal defense attorneys and others in the 1980s or early 1990s. Over the years I’ve seen comments to Ayoob’s materials from attorneys and LEOs saying things like: “They never taught this well in law school,” and “We never learned this at the Police Academy.” Although some of the details have changed, the scenarios still apply and there’s a great deal of good information in it.
Anyone interested in self defense with firearms for any reason would do well to consult his materials and take a course from him.
https://massadayoobgroup.com/who/
RS, it is not clear whether Grosskreutz were acquitted of all charges if he killed Rittenhouse thinking that he was an active shooter. My understanding is that Rittenhouse was not pointing his rifle before self-defense situation, it is illegal to shoot at people who are open carrying firearms. Also Grosskreutz has “expunged” felony conviction and active firearms misdemeanor along with other offenses according to reports. I am not sure how Wisconsin law would treat them, many states do not allow concealed carry with such offenses so he could of be convicted on secondary firearms offenses. It would take another trial to know.