For only one day in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a largely white jury served notice that they didn’t like the racial violence, rioting, looting, arson and anarchy that swept the area in the wake of the May 25, 2020 George Floyd police murder. Whatever the merits of the George Floyd trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, today’s stunning acquittal of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse displayed for all to see the abysmal political divide in the United States. President Joe Biden, 78, told the country today that “the jury system worked,” precisely the opposite of what many of his supporters think. Most of Biden’s constituents think Rittenhouse, now 18, was a white vigilante that inserted himself Aug. 26, 2020 into the middle of a race riot in Kenosha. Rittenhouse claimed he shot-and-killed two protesters, injured another, all out of self-defense, with prosecutors helping his case.
By the time all the jurors weighed all the evidence, it was clear Rittenhouse “thought” he was under attack and responded in kind, prompting a great political divide between Democrats and Republicans. There’s no questions that Democrats thought Rittenhouse was white supremacist who should have been convicted on all charges. Republicans saw Rittenhouse as a Second Amendment poster boy of self-defense defined in the Bill of Rights. But when the dust settled and jurors spent some 46 hours weighing the evidence, they agreed with the defense that Rittenhouse simply exercised his right of self-defense. Clearly, had the jury demographics been different, the outcome would have been different as well. Kenosha’s white jury sent the nation a loud message that a white boy wielding an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rife in riot zone had the right to self-defense.
Once prosecutors presented their case showing that each of Rittenhouse’s victims tired to assault the 17-year-old, whether by kicking him in the head, pointing a gun or hitting him with a skate board, that’s all jurors needed to see to confirm his case of self-defense. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I defended myself,” Rittenhouse told the jury during his personal testimony last week at trial. When Kyle broke down sobbing on the stand, that’s all jurors needed to see to confirm his sincerity. Unlike other criminal defendants that exercise their Fifth Amendment rights to not testify, Rittenhouse had the temerity to testify to the jury, telling his case in his own words. When prosecutors got nasty and accused Kyle of conning the jury, the jury reacted harshly to the prosecutors’ case. Rittenhouse did what many criminal defendants refuse to do, testify in open court to speak directly to the jury.
Kenosha Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder, 75, was subjected to so much press abuse, jurors couldn’t help but show sympathy to his courtroom. Schoreder admonished the prosecution for not being forthcoming with discovery involving a drone videotape showing the crime scene the night Rittenhouse shot-and-killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Gaige Grosskreutz. Kenosha erupted in violence Aug. 23, 2020 after a black man, Jacob Blake, was shot in the back by Kenosha police. Rittenhouse’s defense team portrayed the 17-year-old as a Good Samaritan who went to the riot scene to help Kenosha police restore order. “The defendant is a fraud,” Kenosha County Asst. DA Thomas Binger declared in his closing argument Monday. “Even on the witness stand, he broke down crying about himself, not anyone he hurt that night. No remorse, no concern for anyone else,” Binder said.
Bider didn’t realize that jurors admired Rittenhouse’s willingness to speak for himself in his own defense, a rarity in today’s criminal defense trials. Disparaging Rittenhouse backfired on the prosecution, knowing that closing arguments are not evidence, but biased opinions. When prosecutors hit below the belt, especially with young defendants, jurors take notice. Whether you liked or despised Rittenhouse, there was an innocence about him, a kind of down-to-earth sincerity, that endeared himself to the jury. When Binder got nasty in his closing argument, it turned jurors off. Rep. Ayaana Pressley (D-Mass.), one of the liberal “squad,” including Rep, Alexantria Ocaso-Cortez (D-N.Y..). Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), called Ritenhouse a “white supremacist domestic terrorist,” pulling the race card, showing the country’s political divide.
Rittenhouse’s case became another lightening rod of today’s political landscape, with Democrats branding Rittenhouse as a racist, vigilante killer while Republicans seeing the young man as defending the Second Amendment. Whatever evidence presented at trial jurors used to reach their verdict, half the country wanted the 18-year-old to spend his life behind bars. Biden says the jury system worked, something bound to irk “the squad,” and other liberals, viewing Rittenshouse as a gun-toting white supremacist. Hidden in the Kenosha’s acquittal is growing disgust among white citizens that it’s OK for racial minorities to riot every time there’s a police mishap or something giving rise to violence. Whatever one says about Jan. 6, it was a backlash against the months or rioting, looting, arson and anarchy sweeping cities around the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
