Sure, but that’s it, the trial is not about whether Kyle is a prick or panicked or whether what he stands for is wrong or whether he should or should have had no business even being in Kenosha, and it’s not about whether the protestors were demonstrating or rioting or were justified to do either. It’s about whether Rittenhouse’s actions meet the definitions of the criminal charges filed and whether the prosecution presents evidence that proves so beyond reasonable doubt.
I’m surprised he’s testifying. The video and other witnesses proved self defense.
Testifying is a unneeded risk.
He just admitted routinely driving to work without a driver’s license.
Here’s a legal/trial procedure question:
The defense accused the prosecution of trying to provoke a mistrial by heading down a previously-banned line of questioning. Question is, since the violation was in a manner detrimental to the defense, does the defense have the option of declining the mistrial? They might well think this trial has gone so well for them that they’d rather take their chances this time than risk another trial where anything could happen. Or does the judge just declare a mistrial regardless of whatever the defense thinks about it?
Not my area of law, but I think generally you need the acquiescence of the accused. Otherwise you get into complicated double jeopardy questions.
This was sparked by Kyle’s alleged video wanting to shoot shoplifters.
The judge had previously ruled it’s inadmissible. The prosecutor went into it anyway. He asked other things too that can’t get in.
I’m curious what remedies are available.
The defense raised a motion for a possible mistrial and any remedies. The judge listened and will rule later.
Back to testimony.
So this is analogously like a penalty in football, where a team has the option to decline if it is more beneficial to decline it?
In some situations, a prosecutor-caused mistrial implicates double jeopardy and they don’t get a retrial.
ETA, from wikipedia: In Oregon v. Kennedy , the Supreme Court held that “only where the governmental conduct in question is intended to ‘goad’ the defendant into moving for a mistrial may a defendant raise the bar of double jeopardy to a second trial after having succeeded in aborting the first on his own motion.”
…Then by-default win for the defendant?
Asking for a mistrial seems odd. As I understand it, the prosecution didn’t get to the point of actually raising the issue of the Rittenhouse video about shooting shoplifters. Rather, that they started asking him about whether he thought it was appropriate to shoot people in defense of property, and the judge assumed that they were leading up to discussing the video. But I don’t see any major damage to the defense case actually happening. Meanwhile, if they get a mistrial, then they have to start all over again, when as it stands they seem to be winning this case.
It’s as if a sports team is ahead in the score in the late stages of the game and then get upset at some rules violation and demand that the game be voided and replayed from scratch. Not a smart strategy, I would think.
And not good for Rittenhouse for other reasons. I assume if there’s a mistrial and he gets tried again, that his legal bills will double and his life will be on hold and his future up in the air for that much longer.
It doesn’t seem possible that the prosecution can’t take another shot, because as above the defense suggested that the prosecution is attempting to provoke a mistrial, which would make no sense if the prosecution would then lose by forfeit.
I wonder if they are just trying to preserve some grounds for appeal on the chance that they lose, but would secretly prefer that their motion be rejected.
Yeah that’s what I’m thinking. It seems profoundly foolhardy to ask for a retrial when your current trial is going so well for you (the defense.) Nothing to gain and everything to lose.
The same could be said for the defendant testifying, but he’s doing it.
Not so much an option to decline, rather the Prosecution would have to be very careful.
Some case law I looked up real quick.
The Court’s decision in United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470 (1971), appears to hold that any mistrial declared without the accused’s acquiescence constitutionally bars retrial unless the termination of the first trial was compelled by an imperative need arising from circumstances that were not the prosecutor’s fault.
ETA: Of course, all moot if the defendant is the one asking for mistrial.
Couple of points:
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It’s thought that juries tend to hold it against defendents who decline to testify. Even though they legally shouldn’t and the judge tells them not to, it’s still a factor.
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It’s likely that Rittenhouse testifying is not as risky as another defendant testifying. He is all of 18 years old, and looks it. If he trips up here and there, the jury would very possibly attribute that to his being a kid in a stressful situation and being berated by an adult.
Also, I’m not sure that it’s bad strategy to ask for a mistrial at this point. If they get one and the prosecutor declines another trial because the first one went so poorly, they never have to risk it going to an unpredictable jury.
How if what one did was not a crime a charge should mandated? I’m not following the logic.
Advocating criminality and violence is not really cool. I remember all the advocation of violence on this board directed at someone merely wearing a hat.
This is curious to me. To help me clarify things, I like to take them to the extreme. I’m going to intentionally misspell names because these are real people and I don’t know them.
In my extreme examples, Ritter shoots and kills 30 people. The first killing happens in two slightly different but unclear ways:
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The first person Ritter killed was under less than clear circumstances, but in self-defense (so says Ritter, so says the Jury). The other 29, not seeing what happened, think Ritter is an active shooter. Each bravely make aggressive moves toward Ritter to disarm, hurt and stop him, but not kill him. Ritter believes he is acting in self defense when he intends to shoot all 29 (so says Ritter, so says the Jury). To be clear, this is a tragedy, but Ritter did nothing criminal.
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The first person Ritter killed was under less than clear circumstances, but not in self-defense (Ritter says so, but not the Jury who believe Ritter was the aggressor and he murdered the first person). The other 29, not seeing what happened, think Ritter is an active shooter. Each bravely make aggressive moves toward Ritter to disarm, hurt, and stop him, but not kill him. Ritter believes he is acting in self defense when he intends to shoot all 29 (it’s my understanding self defense can’t be used by Ritter here since he was found to be the aggressor and self defense would not be put to the jury). To be clear, this is a tragedy, and Ritter committed 30 criminal murders.
It seems bizarre that we don’t know whether Ritter is free to go or one of the worst mass murderers in history until a jury lets us know about the reasonableness of self defense in the first killing and the other 29 crimes or noncrimes fall like dominoes based on that.
If I rushed this post and if something is slightly off/incorrect legally or otherwise, I hope you see what I’m trying to do. At some point, the absurdity of the situation has to intervene or be taken into account instead of just analyzing each act/killing on its own.
It makes perfect sense to me.
If I’m in a crowd and randomly get assaulted, I fight back and my attacker dies, then 30 people attack me in the erroneous (but perhaps reasonable) belief he is saving his own or other’s lives, and I fight them all off, and each one dies, I should very much be free to go, since I was never the aggressor.
On the other hand, if I’m in the crowd and randomly kill somebody unprovoked and announce I’m going to kill more people, then 30 people attack me in the correct believe he is saving his own life, I fight them all off and they die, I should very much be charged with 30 counts of murder.
So yes, I think that’s very much how it should go in your hypothetical.
And this is why people make the comparison to Wild West shootouts. If both you and the other guy are fully reasonable in your belief that the other is a threat, then we’re in a might makes right scenario, where the morally justified winner is the one who’s faster on the draw.
Call me crazy, but I prefer a legal and moral framework based on criteria other than “fastest gun in the West”. I didn’t watch the Trails By Combat in Game of Thrones and think “man, why can’t our legal code work that way?”