Whoa! Former prosecutor and former criminal defense attorney here (and a big fan of your work.) I don't understand these two people you bring to your case analysis. Your criticism of your former self is valid; you jumped to the guilty assumption way too fast. But the criticism is coming from your newer self who is jumping to the innocent assumption way too fast. The statement that "what's far less clear is whether he committed a crime," strikes me as almost absurd. Had you just written "first degree murder" instead of "a crime," you might have pulled this column off, but even then, you are walking where juries and fact-finders tread, with a bit too much self assurance. Also, your indictment of Wisconsin as being one of only three states that consider 17-year olds adults implies that other states would handle this differently. In my own state--which isn't one of those three--Rittenhouse would certainly have been waived up and tried as an adult. I imagine that is true in most, if not all, other states. I see your disagreement with the concept, but juvenile justice systems generally are not set up to handle an almost 18-year old who killed two people regardless of your conclusion that he is innocent. If you are going to take all the people who are in this situation and keep them out of adult court, so be it but you will need to design some sort of new system to pick up the old juveniles. I assume that you are ready to do that. Fine with me, but it doesn't exist in my state and probably doesn't exist in most others. Try him as a juvenile here and if convicted, he will serve no time whatsoever. Prosecutors need to work with the system that they have. Your conclusion about self-defense would be fine except that this is what juries do. It looks like Rittenhouse has enough facts to make out his case but you don't get to decide it. Was he really threatened to that degree or not? You have decided to accept his portrayal of what happened over the prosecution's portrayal of what happened I don't have any idea whether he will be convicted. You don't have any idea whether he will be acquitted. Finally, it is not blood lust to be this sick and tired of a system that consistently convicts young black men while acquitting young white men of the same acts. It is frustration, it is exhaustion. Those are not the same as blood lust.
What Kyle Rittenhouse did was wrong, granted the people who should actually be prosecuted are his parents. What parents in their right mind would think it's OK for their (under age) son to patrol the streets of a distant city with an AR-15? Furthermore, what political movement in their right mind thinks rioting is appropriate, which overwhelms our police, and causes the violence which drove American citizens to "take the law into their own hands" and defend private property? Finally: since (unfortunately) America is a highly armed and dangerous society, defunding the police (ahem: the people meant to protect citizens) is perhaps not the best idea because if they were properly equipped to handle this situation then Kyle may not have gone to Kenosha in the first place.
What Kyle did was idiotic and, I would argue in a just society, wrong. That doesn't make the current case a good legal one.
I come to these kinds of cases with a built-in bias against people carrying guns. "Let them all kill each other" is my general attitude because I'm sick and tired of hearing about 2nd Amendment rights and having to listen to politicians pander to gun-rights activists and seeing domestic violence rates go up, and increasing violent crime in cities. Given my prejudices and trying to make sense of the Rittenhouse trial one part of me says, ""he brought a gun to an already volatile situation so he deserves anything bad that happens to him including being found guilty of the various charges brought". Another part of me says "OK, even though he brought and ultimately fired his weapon, is there any reason he should not be found guilty?" Considering the company he found himself surrounded with I can see at the very least a negligent homicide but from what I have read I don't think that is one of the charges. He is being charged with recklessness and, given my prejudices, he is certainly that. Being stupid isn't a crime but I do think he knew or should have known, that bringing a loaded weapon to a riot could lead to the use of that weapon and I do think he was looking for trouble. First degree? Probably not. The lesser charges of reckless endangerment? Sounds about right.
Absolutely agree 100% with your piece, Mr. Cohen. I wrote a letter expressing similar feelings on Charlie Sykes' piece today. For the record, I identify as a white liberal Democrat. Not a progressive, because in my opinion they make the perfect the enemy of the good. But in all of these cases that have troubling evidence, the liberals and progressives are reflexively for the unarmed black/liberal person and the conservatives and Proud Boy extremists and such reflexively support the armed white cop/conservative. Trayvon Martin was in the process of beating George Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk. The liberal press lionized Martin and demonized Zimmerman. The Ferguson case had the cop who shot Michael Brown accused of murder by all the liberal shows. All of them. Nobody cared about evidence. I also believe that evidence matters and emotional verdicts by the public are similar to lynching. Because, if they were able to, they undoubtedly would have lynched the accused shooter. Unarmed does not mean defenseless. If you think I am making a racial argument, you need a good shrink for yourself, because that is not my point. At all.
Whoa! Former prosecutor and former criminal defense attorney here (and a big fan of your work.) I don't understand these two people you bring to your case analysis. Your criticism of your former self is valid; you jumped to the guilty assumption way too fast. But the criticism is coming from your newer self who is jumping to the innocent assumption way too fast. The statement that "what's far less clear is whether he committed a crime," strikes me as almost absurd. Had you just written "first degree murder" instead of "a crime," you might have pulled this column off, but even then, you are walking where juries and fact-finders tread, with a bit too much self assurance. Also, your indictment of Wisconsin as being one of only three states that consider 17-year olds adults implies that other states would handle this differently. In my own state--which isn't one of those three--Rittenhouse would certainly have been waived up and tried as an adult. I imagine that is true in most, if not all, other states. I see your disagreement with the concept, but juvenile justice systems generally are not set up to handle an almost 18-year old who killed two people regardless of your conclusion that he is innocent. If you are going to take all the people who are in this situation and keep them out of adult court, so be it but you will need to design some sort of new system to pick up the old juveniles. I assume that you are ready to do that. Fine with me, but it doesn't exist in my state and probably doesn't exist in most others. Try him as a juvenile here and if convicted, he will serve no time whatsoever. Prosecutors need to work with the system that they have. Your conclusion about self-defense would be fine except that this is what juries do. It looks like Rittenhouse has enough facts to make out his case but you don't get to decide it. Was he really threatened to that degree or not? You have decided to accept his portrayal of what happened over the prosecution's portrayal of what happened I don't have any idea whether he will be convicted. You don't have any idea whether he will be acquitted. Finally, it is not blood lust to be this sick and tired of a system that consistently convicts young black men while acquitting young white men of the same acts. It is frustration, it is exhaustion. Those are not the same as blood lust.
What Kyle Rittenhouse did was wrong, granted the people who should actually be prosecuted are his parents. What parents in their right mind would think it's OK for their (under age) son to patrol the streets of a distant city with an AR-15? Furthermore, what political movement in their right mind thinks rioting is appropriate, which overwhelms our police, and causes the violence which drove American citizens to "take the law into their own hands" and defend private property? Finally: since (unfortunately) America is a highly armed and dangerous society, defunding the police (ahem: the people meant to protect citizens) is perhaps not the best idea because if they were properly equipped to handle this situation then Kyle may not have gone to Kenosha in the first place.
What Kyle did was idiotic and, I would argue in a just society, wrong. That doesn't make the current case a good legal one.
I come to these kinds of cases with a built-in bias against people carrying guns. "Let them all kill each other" is my general attitude because I'm sick and tired of hearing about 2nd Amendment rights and having to listen to politicians pander to gun-rights activists and seeing domestic violence rates go up, and increasing violent crime in cities. Given my prejudices and trying to make sense of the Rittenhouse trial one part of me says, ""he brought a gun to an already volatile situation so he deserves anything bad that happens to him including being found guilty of the various charges brought". Another part of me says "OK, even though he brought and ultimately fired his weapon, is there any reason he should not be found guilty?" Considering the company he found himself surrounded with I can see at the very least a negligent homicide but from what I have read I don't think that is one of the charges. He is being charged with recklessness and, given my prejudices, he is certainly that. Being stupid isn't a crime but I do think he knew or should have known, that bringing a loaded weapon to a riot could lead to the use of that weapon and I do think he was looking for trouble. First degree? Probably not. The lesser charges of reckless endangerment? Sounds about right.
Absolutely agree 100% with your piece, Mr. Cohen. I wrote a letter expressing similar feelings on Charlie Sykes' piece today. For the record, I identify as a white liberal Democrat. Not a progressive, because in my opinion they make the perfect the enemy of the good. But in all of these cases that have troubling evidence, the liberals and progressives are reflexively for the unarmed black/liberal person and the conservatives and Proud Boy extremists and such reflexively support the armed white cop/conservative. Trayvon Martin was in the process of beating George Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk. The liberal press lionized Martin and demonized Zimmerman. The Ferguson case had the cop who shot Michael Brown accused of murder by all the liberal shows. All of them. Nobody cared about evidence. I also believe that evidence matters and emotional verdicts by the public are similar to lynching. Because, if they were able to, they undoubtedly would have lynched the accused shooter. Unarmed does not mean defenseless. If you think I am making a racial argument, you need a good shrink for yourself, because that is not my point. At all.