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Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 3:21 pm
by plodder
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 2:39 pm

What would happen if a black person did the same and some right wing gathering, how likely would they be to get off?
I expect it won’t be long before we find out.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 3:24 pm
by secret squirrel
Well, going by the case of Michael Reinoehl it wouldn't even get to court.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2021 3:34 pm
by sheldrake
bjn wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 1:31 pm
So the protesters who felt threatened by Rittenhouse would have been equally justified if they had killed him? He was walking around with an assault rifle in a provocative manner and was a threat to their lives, especially after he started shootings people.
Only if he attacked them or aimed his rifle at them first. Rittenhouse opened fire after being attacked.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:47 pm
by JQH
I thought it wasn't so much he was attacked as he had a gun pointed at him?

Could it be that the gun pointer had noticed Rittenhouse's assault weapon and was just warning him off?

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:54 pm
by shpalman
JQH wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:47 pm
I thought it wasn't so much he was attacked as he had a gun pointed at him?

Could it be that the gun pointer had noticed Rittenhouse's assault weapon and was just warning him off?
Should have attacked him in self defence before Rittenhouse attacked him in self defence.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:59 pm
by sheldrake
JQH wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:47 pm
I thought it wasn't so much he was attacked as he had a gun pointed at him?

Could it be that the gun pointer had noticed Rittenhouse's assault weapon and was just warning him off?
One of the people he shot hit at him with a skateboard, one of them kicked him whilst he was on the ground (Rittenhouse missed), one of them tried to grab him and one of them aimed a pistol at him at close range and admitted doing so in court. It's f.cked up that a 17 year old is wandering around with a rifle in this situation, but it's easy to see why the jury unanimously decided this was self defence. The idea that this case rested on a very subjective definition of threatening behaviour where those who were shot could have claimed self-defence if they'd shot first is false.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:30 pm
by Al Capone Junior
Unbelievable verdict. Those of us with a conscience are mortified.

The repugnicans and evangelicals are of course rejoicing and becoming more and more emboldened.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:37 pm
by sheldrake
Al Capone Junior wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:30 pm
Unbelievable verdict. Those of us with a conscience are mortified.

The repugnicans and evangelicals are of course rejoicing and becoming more and more emboldened.
It's a shame 'people with consciences' were so quiet the last time Kenosha was smashed up. Perhaps if they'd worked harder to stop violent nutjobs attending civil rights protests and smashing up local businesses and attacking anybody they didn't like the look of this would never have happened.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:30 pm
by Stephanie
I've split a bunch of posts off to the pit. Please read Rule 12 and Rule 13 before derailing any more threads.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:35 pm
by sheldrake
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:30 pm
I've split a bunch of posts off to the pit. Please read Rule 12 and Rule 13 before derailing any more threads.
Are we allowed to note from Woodchopper's articles that African Americans are able to take weapons to protests without being arrested, most of the time?

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:37 pm
by Stephanie
sheldrake wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:35 pm
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:30 pm
I've split a bunch of posts off to the pit. Please read Rule 12 and Rule 13 before derailing any more threads.
Are we allowed to note from Woodchopper's articles that African Americans are able to take weapons to protests without being arrested, most of the time?
No.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:38 pm
by sheldrake
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:37 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:35 pm
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:30 pm
I've split a bunch of posts off to the pit. Please read Rule 12 and Rule 13 before derailing any more threads.
Are we allowed to note from Woodchopper's articles that African Americans are able to take weapons to protests without being arrested, most of the time?
No.
Why not?

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:40 pm
by Stephanie
sheldrake wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:38 pm
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:37 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:35 pm


Are we allowed to note from Woodchopper's articles that African Americans are able to take weapons to protests without being arrested, most of the time?
No.
Why not?
The posts are in the pit. Discuss it there

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 3:45 pm
by IvanV
Al Capone Junior wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 3:30 pm
Unbelievable verdict.
Unsurprising verdict. At least, I'm unsurprised after I read the defence case before the verdict.

The problem is the laws of Wisconsin, which are hardly unexceptional by US standards. And hence, more broadly, US attitudes to guns. It's going to take a substantial change in US attitudes to change anything.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:04 pm
by IvanV
Stranger Mouse wrote:
Fri Nov 19, 2021 8:34 pm
The judge has a lot to answer for.
The verdict was brought in 12-0 by a jury, not a judge. Is that the judge's fault? It can be. Judges influence verdicts. But whilst the judge didn't try very hard to show a scrupulous neutrality, I can't see it made much difference in practice. The problem here, at heart, is the laws of Wisconsin.

People are saying a black defendant in this case would be found guilty. But that's a quite different problem. That is not the law, rather it is the administration of the law when the defendant is black that is the problem in that case.

We might think that a judge should try to stretch the law to get a moral outcome rather than a legal one. This specifc judge wasn't going to do that. But it seems unlikely that another judge could have done very much in that direction. So to the extent we dislike the verdict from a moral point of view, I would continue to blame the laws of Wisconsin more than the judge.

The judge did display some attitudes you might think amounted to pro-defendant prejudice. The judge did at least resist a call for a mistrial with prejudice, which would have taken it out of the hands of the jury. That claim followed some rather heavy handed actions by the prosecution. The judge responded to that with some rather heavy-handed actions of his own against the prosecution.

But it seems this was all noise in the end. The consensus seems to be that the trial was largely settled on the single key legal point of whether the defendant had a a self-defence claim, and the compelling evidence the defendant presented on that point. Once the defendant won that claim, the prosecution was impeded even from asserting secondary charges.

Commentators have noted that a crucial point in the trial was the judge's instructions to the jury on how in law they should assess whether the defendant should benefit from the self-defence test. The defendant was then able to demonstrate in his testimony, and in a way that many found compelling, that he did precisely satisfy that test, as set out by the judge. I find it hard to criticise the judge at this point. His instructions were clear and correct, which is what they should be. I've not seen a claim that the judge's instructions on this were wrong, distorted, or conceived in a way that was unduly kind to the defendant.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:23 pm
by bjn
Well the despicable men who shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery while he was out jogging have been convicted of murder. Their attempt at justifying it as self defence was no accepted and the white majority jury sent them down.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:15 pm
by plodder
Is that because different states have different laws? (rhetorical question)

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:24 pm
by bjn
Not sure. The jury obviously didn’t buy the self defence argument, but whether that was because the laws are sufficiently different or because they thought it was obvious bollocks when Ahmaud was on foot and unarmed and they were not.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:19 pm
by Bird on a Fire
bjn wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:24 pm
Not sure. The jury obviously didn’t buy the self defence argument, but whether that was because the laws are sufficiently different or because they thought it was obvious bollocks when Ahmaud was on foot and unarmed and they were not.
Yes, the Rittenhouse case is a bit different - a bunch of angry armed men threatening each other with weapons, versus an unarmed man on his own getting chased by a group of armed men in a vehicle.

The bloke who was shot and didn't die pretty much testified that he initiated the confrontation, which does make a claim of self-defence somewhat more plausible.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:37 pm
by IvanV
Whereas Rittenhouse did actually have guns pointed at him, when he was not initially pointing guns at them, as a couple of people who did the gun-pointing but fortunately didn't get killed, testified quite clearly in court. Probably a big help when trying to demonstrate a self-defence claim.

It seems that under Wisconsin law, having a gun pointed at you, when you have not pointed one at them, seems to present a reasonable claim for a self-defence argument if you shoot the person pointing it at you. Is that actually terribly surprising? The real problem is that when lots of people are carrying guns quite legally, it's not difficult for fatal misunderstandings of this nature to occur from time to time.

In Britain, an armed police officer who had a gun pointed at them could probably rely on the same defence if they shot the person pointing the gun at them. But it would be unusual for such a situation to occur in Britain, not involving armed enforcement officers, because no one else should be carrying guns in the normal course of events. We can imagine a gang shoot-out - but no one is going to get off scot free in that case because they shouldn't have had the guns. I suppose we can just about imagine a misunderstanding at a pheasant shoot. Or perhaps, an armed burglar confronted by a householder who sneaks about undetected long enough to fetch their shotgun from their gunsafe.

In fact it seems you can get away with killing people with dangerous weapons in situations of relatively limited threat even in Britain:

Harry Stanley was shot by the Metropolitan police, while carrying a chair leg in a plastic bag. The police had been given information - it has been suggested it was an act of malice by the informant - that Stanley was armed. The case against the police was eventually dropped, though they never got full exoneration. Neither police nor Stanley's family were happy with the outcome. Carlos Menezes is a similar case. Perhaps the rather sad hold-up artist who tried to rob a Glasgow betting shop with a cucumber wrapped in a sock, which he claimed was a gun, was lucky he didn't get shot by the police.

More recently, a 79-yr old manwas acquitted of any charge after stabbing a burglar in his house to death with a kitchen knife - he claimed the burglar threatened him with a screwdriver.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:50 am
by Millennie Al
IvanV wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:37 pm
In fact it seems you can get away with killing people with dangerous weapons in situations of relatively limited threat even in Britain:
The most extreme case of that was in the 80's when Kenneth Noye stabbed to death a detective on surveillance. Noye successfully pled self-defence on the grounds that he had felt threatened when he had found a man hiding in his garden wearing a balaclava and camouflage.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:07 am
by plodder
Millennie Al wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 2:50 am
IvanV wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:37 pm
In fact it seems you can get away with killing people with dangerous weapons in situations of relatively limited threat even in Britain:
The most extreme case of that was in the 80's when Kenneth Noye stabbed to death a detective on surveillance. Noye successfully pled self-defence on the grounds that he had felt threatened when he had found a man hiding in his garden wearing a balaclava and camouflage.
He also successfully argued that the multiple stab wounds were not a frenzied attach but a measured defence - because he used a garden fork, which tends to leave more holes.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:10 am
by plodder
Wisconsin law essentially says that Clint Eastwood is a good guy because he shoots first but doesn’t go waving his gun around. Mega quick on the draw, basically.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:15 am
by discovolante
IvanV wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 10:37 pm
Whereas Rittenhouse did actually have guns pointed at him, when he was not initially pointing guns at them, as a couple of people who did the gun-pointing but fortunately didn't get killed, testified quite clearly in court. Probably a big help when trying to demonstrate a self-defence claim.

It seems that under Wisconsin law, having a gun pointed at you, when you have not pointed one at them, seems to present a reasonable claim for a self-defence argument if you shoot the person pointing it at you. Is that actually terribly surprising? The real problem is that when lots of people are carrying guns quite legally, it's not difficult for fatal misunderstandings of this nature to occur from time to time.

In Britain, an armed police officer who had a gun pointed at them could probably rely on the same defence if they shot the person pointing the gun at them. But it would be unusual for such a situation to occur in Britain, not involving armed enforcement officers, because no one else should be carrying guns in the normal course of events. We can imagine a gang shoot-out - but no one is going to get off scot free in that case because they shouldn't have had the guns. I suppose we can just about imagine a misunderstanding at a pheasant shoot. Or perhaps, an armed burglar confronted by a householder who sneaks about undetected long enough to fetch their shotgun from their gunsafe.

In fact it seems you can get away with killing people with dangerous weapons in situations of relatively limited threat even in Britain:

Harry Stanley was shot by the Metropolitan police, while carrying a chair leg in a plastic bag. The police had been given information - it has been suggested it was an act of malice by the informant - that Stanley was armed. The case against the police was eventually dropped, though they never got full exoneration. Neither police nor Stanley's family were happy with the outcome. Carlos Menezes is a similar case. Perhaps the rather sad hold-up artist who tried to rob a Glasgow betting shop with a cucumber wrapped in a sock, which he claimed was a gun, was lucky he didn't get shot by the police.

More recently, a 79-yr old manwas acquitted of any charge after stabbing a burglar in his house to death with a kitchen knife - he claimed the burglar threatened him with a screwdriver.
The cases you refer to where nobody was convicted are inquests and inquiries, not criminal proceedings. They weren't 'acquittals'. Richard Osborn-Brooks was arrested on 4 April and a decision to take no further action was made the following day I.e. he was never even charged with an offence. To be honest I can't fathom that at all, for such a serious potential offence. Unfortunately I don't have time to look into it now.

Re self defence. In England and Wales (and Scotland, broadly speaking), the force used has to be reasonable, but based on the facts as the accused believed them (so eg if someone points a fake gun at you and you believed it was real, your actions would be judged as you believed them to be - not 100% sure how this applies in Scotland without checking). Whether or not there is another way to escape is also taken into account. I'm mushing EW and S together a bit there but the overall point being that the law in Wisconsin appears to be more favourable to defendants. Whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse would have been acquitted here I dunno.

Re: Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted of all charges

Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 11:28 am
by IvanV
discovolante wrote:
Thu Nov 25, 2021 10:15 am
Whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse would have been acquitted here I dunno.
Clearly his actions would have got him many years in prison in Britain, even if he was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter, because of the extremely serious and aggravated nature of the firearms offence as British law would see it.

The mere fact of intentionally having a loaded gun with you at a demonstration in Britain would probably be sufficiently "negligent" to pass a manslaughter negligence test in Britain, even if the gun went off accidentally.

But really it's an impossible question to ask whether he would have been acquitted of various homicide offences in Britain, because precisely the same situation - including the crucial state of mind that matters for such offences - cannot occur. Someone who takes such a gun to a demonstration in Britain, where it is utterly illegal, cannot possibly be in remotely the same state of mind as someone who does it in the USA. There were apparently quite a few people carrying firearms at that demo, because people do routinely carry firearms in some parts of the USA.