Precedents are for judges to worry about, not juries, which are bound to decide the case before them based on the facts and the law. The prosecution is also unable to argue that the jury should be concerned about the precedential value of an acquittal.
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This is the price we pay for a system that is built on the notion that it is better that 10 guilty defendants go free than one innocent defendant be convicted.
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But this one is an even steeper climb because the government also bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse was not acting in self-defense.
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The government must prove each element of each offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Like all convictions, this one is an uphill battle for the prosecution. Even if Rittenhouse genuinely believed these things, the jury may conclude his belief was not reasonable. Who stops to offer assistance when you are racing to put out a fire? He also testified that he thought he had no choice but to shoot Rosenbaum, even though Rosenbaum himself was unarmed, because he was “cornered” and believed that Rosenbaum would take his gun and kill him and would have “probably killed more people,” an assertion that sounded speculative at best. For example, he testified that at that time of the encounter with Rosenbaum, Rittenhouse was running back to a car lot with a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, yet on the way, he was asking people if they needed any medical attention. At one point, he broke down and sobbed on the witness stand, likely engendering sympathy from at least some of the jurors.īut parts of his story didn’t quite add up. In some ways Rittenhouse’s testimony was compelling. It is also highly likely that he will be convicted of illegally possessing the weapon, a crime to which self-defense does not apply, though the maximum penalty for that crime is only nine months in prison. A finding by the jury that any one of the episodes was unreasonable would result in significant prison time for Rittenhouse. The reasonableness of fatally shooting the unarmed Joseph Rosenbaum, for example, could result in a different conclusion than the reasonableness of shooting the surviving Gaige Grosskreutz, who pointed a handgun at Rittenhouse before the defendant fired. Importantly, the jury will be asked to assess each of the encounters separately, which means Rittenhouse could be convicted of some counts but acquitted of others.
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If you were in Rittenhouse's shoes, would you have aimed and fired a semi-automatic rifle? Or would you have used something short of deadly force? While the law allows the jury to consider Rittenhouse’s situation, his conduct will be viewed from an objective perspective.
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The key issue will be the reasonableness of Rittenhouse’s belief. If you were in the shoes of Rittenhouse, would you have aimed and fired an assault rifle? Or would you have used something short of deadly force? What the law taketh away, it giveth back. Even then, however, the law says a defendant may still use deadly force if he reasonably believes he has no other means to avoid death or great bodily harm. It provides that 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 or threaten force in self-defense against that attack.” That prohibition would seem to apply to Rittenhouse, whose alleged illegal possession of a semi-automatic rifle provoked others to attack him. Generally, someone who provokes an attack is unable to use self-defense, but Wisconsin law is a little more generous, even contradictory. Under that law, deadly force is permitted if a defendant “reasonably believed that the force used was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself.” Reasonableness is to be viewed based on “the defendant’s position under the circumstances that existed at the time of the alleged offense.” At the conclusion of Rittenhouse’s trial, the jury will be asked to apply Wisconsin’s law of self-defense.