The defense rested yesterday, rebuttal has been taken care of, and the jury has been sent home for the weekend. Trial will resume on Monday with the Judge reading the jury instructions and closing arguments from both sides. Jury deliberations will start late on Monday or on Tuesday.
Today the attorneys and the Judge will be conducting a jury instruction conference. Each state has a set form of jury instructions for criminal cases and civil cases. Both sides may propound additional jury instructions to the Court, to meet the special circumstances of the case, with the Judge deciding which jury instructions to use and the language to be used in non-standard instructions. I am expecting some argument on some of the instructions crafted by both sides in this case. The Judge will tell the jurors on Monday that they are the triers of fact in this case, but the law is what he tells them it is in the jury instructions. In my experience once jurors begin their deliberations they rarely look at the jury instructions other than to hunt down the verdict forms they need to sign.
Other than this, today all remaining pre-trial motions will be argued, including any motions for directed verdicts. Observing the Judge yesterday and his comments, I think it is clear that he believes that this case is going to the jury, and I will be surprised if he grants a motion for a directed verdict, at least on the big charges. The State will be asking leave to file lesser included charges, a thing the State normally does if they think the jury is likely not to convict on the major charges. It is a way of allowing a divided jury to split the difference. It will be interesting to see the reaction of the defense.
The testimony yesterday I think probably didn’t sway the jury one way or another. From what I have heard, none of the jurors are now taking notes, and their postures are quite relaxed, indicating to me they have made up their minds.
The trial should resume at 9:00 AM CT today. Go here to watch a live feed.
Below is a recapsfrom yesterday:
The Rittenhouse issue in two sentences. Arson, assault, looting, murder, riot, [in 270 instances in 2020] are GOOD. Self-defense is BAD.
Asking for a friend. Why did the kid shoot only three armed guys trying to kill him, and not everybody in sight? I would have.
Why did the kid shoot only three armed guys trying to kill him, and not everybody in sight? I would have.
Better trigger discipline.
A 17 year old kid who set out with a first aid kit and a strong desire to help. He was shattered by having to kill anyone, even in self-defense. None of this would have happened of course if Democrat mayors and governors had not decided that BLM riots were to be placed in a special kid-gloves category, and the citizenry devastated by the riots could go pound sand.
A 17 year old kid who set out with a first aid kit and a strong desire to help. He was shattered by having to kill anyone, even in self-defense. None of this would have happened of course if Democrat mayors and governors had not decided that BLM riots were to be placed in a special kid-gloves category, and the citizenry devastated by the riots could go pound sand.
He’s remarkable.
Good one, Art!
Additionally, I am 100%, absolutely certain that if Young Master Rittenhouse had been murdered, there would have been NO arrest and NO trial.
Summary that apparently got through to a lot of folks:
If Kyle had been killed, it wouldn’t have even hit the news.
“If Kyle had been killed, it wouldn’t have even hit the news.”
Unless it was to celebrate the death of a “white supremacist”!
Rekeita law panel: “The kid’s getting railroaded. And the defense is culpable.” Robert Barnes has warning about that from the beginning.
I know nothing about the legal aspects, but the whole drone footage blurry photo thing was IMO awful. The “enhanced” footage the judge was watching on that TV had gone through at least 4 distinct algorithms- the compression on recording (assuming it wasn’t recorded in some sort of RAW) the interpolation used on stabilization (and this could include both in drone and post), the interpolation used in the frame averaging, the compression used on the export, and then the algorithm used to upscale on the 4K TV. If you go from 844p (or whatever they said), which would be 1,620,480 pixels, and upscale to 4K, you then have 8,294,400 pixels, which means the upscaler is adding in about 5x more information. (There might also be color space conversion issues at any or all levels which can affect the other steps along the way.) All of which involves algorithms choosing which information to retain, remove, or add, and all on a subject initially probably less than 50 pixels high. That’s around the level of pixel detail of Sonic the Hedgehog from the Sega Genesis days (maybe even less), except with terrible lighting, motion blur and the camera moving at the time it’s supposed to have happened.
I also think pulling screencaps from videos is sleazy. It’s trivially easy to pull a screencap that gives a completely different context to something. Although admittedly useful for memes.