Usually, not always. Its a tactical decision.
You may well be on the hook for prof misconduct if it appears you didn’t do reasonable due diligence.
I think it’ll be a quick decision. Only with delays on the jury asking for specifics on certain charges. Probably tomorrow or Wednesday we’ll hear a decision.
If they had not indicted Rittenhouse on the reckless endangerment change against McGinnis no one would have batted an eye. I don’t see that charge as necessary at all. McGinnis works for the Daily Caller. If he was a defense witness the prosecution could have gone after him harder. The Rosenbaum shooting is the key to the entire case. It’s possible there could be a split vote on counts but I don’t see it happening. How the jury feels about the Rosenbaum shooting is how the other counts will go. McGinnis’ testimony helped the defense.
I’ll be a little surprised if there is much of a split verdict too; with the one exception being the reckless endangerment charge. While I’ve followed the case closely since it got more on my radar last week, I haven’t been able to follow every minute of the trial. The one thing I’ve seen from all the videos that gave me pause legally was during the shooting sequence with Huber and Grosskreutz he essentially squeezes off some rounds that clearly weren’t aimed at either, and functionally was just “firing into the night”, which is generally illegal and is very hard to assert any kind of self-defense claim over.
However, if the jury is already sympathetic to the self-defense claims, they may be inclined to not convict on that for various reasons.
While I am very doubtful he will be found guilty for either homicide at any level of charge, I do think there’s enough elements to the case and specific arguments made that a reasonable jury could vote to convict, so I certainly wouldn’t bet my life on a full acquittal, but I do think a full acquittal is the most likely outcome. I also think there was enough…shenanigans, during this trial that if he does get convicted, he has a ton of ground on which to base an appeal and we would have a high likelihood of seeing a retrial.
I honestly think the reckless endangerment charge is the dumbest of all–even dumber than the ones that got dismissed because the prosecutor couldn’t even make out the elements. The way the jury instructions went out (and as I might have guessed based on the way self-defense works), if Rittenhouse was privileged to use self-defense against Rosenbaum, then it doesn’t really matter that McGinnis was in or near the line of fire and at risk himself. If the verdict is not guilty on homicide re: Rosenbaum, then I would expect either (a) the same must be true of reckless endangerment, or, if not (b) the judge might direct a verdict of not guilty irrespective of the jury’s decision (or indecision).
I think there is room for a split on the two later gunshot victims, though. It is possible to say that even though he was privileged to use self-defense against Rosenbaum, and that in turn provoked the pursuit by others, that he was unreasonable in using deadly force as he did on at least one of his two later victims. Especially if the jury is already willing to grant that merely possessing a firearm is not enough of a threat to warrant self-defense (referring to Grosskreutz).
The WIKI for Kenosha indicates the jury was chosen from a well educated, modestly affluent, liberal society. Kenosha is surrounded by a less educated, politically blue population. The riot damage is generally attributed to outsiders.
I agree that the case hinges on Rosenbaum. The prosecution concentrated on just that. And in the context of our previous discussion regarding the reasonable person standard, the prosecution graphically illustrated that the smaller Rosenbaums’ bare hands did not present a threat of serious or mortal injury to Rittenhouse.
An urban, educated group, with a liberal bias against outsiders, should make for orderly debate. I’d say three days. One to get organized and review the evidence. A day and a half of debate and half a day to exactly respond to the judges’ instructions. But, if there’s one gun nut in the group, it’s a hung jury.
Is that a known thing in Kenosha (the bias against outsiders)? As mentioned, his dad lived in Kenosha so he wasn’t entirely an outsider. Plus, it’s right on the border. I’ve lived in and went to college in Kenosha. There’s A TON of people from Illinois that work and/or go to school in Kenosha.
I suspect they are not. I believe the jury debate will center on whether or not the Rosenbaum homicide was self defense.
The firing into the night I saw on video came after he shot Huber, not Rosenbaum, I’m unclear on if there is a reckless endangerment charge related to the Rosenbaum shooting. I also had not heard much in the reporting even address the reckless endangerment charge, so I’m not sure the prosecution really made much of it which doesn’t bode well for obtaining a conviction.
Then you have insight that I lack.
I read the WIKI and looked at the politics. The media has reported some resentment of protesting outsiders. It’s my understanding that the town is more liberal than the surrounding rural area, The jury would have been drawn from the voter registration of the town. That probably did not include non-resident students.
You’re right. There are two charges of “First-degree recklessly endangering safety.” One with respect to McGinnis, the other re: “jump kick man.” But that’s the problem. The man was indeed trying to “jump kick” him. If he was privileged to murder exercise self-defense against Rosenbaum for the sin of allegedly trying to get hands on his assault rifle, then I suspect the jury would be willing to apply the same logic to jump kick man, unless they think the whole second round of bloodshed was unwarranted, in which case there’s a homicide charge involved.
It’s a county circuit court for what it is worth, meaning the jury pulled from the entire county.
That county went 50.7% for Trump, 47.5% for Biden, so not a crazy partisan tilt either way. I also generally think people tend to overestimate how much someone’s political bias enters into their jury deliberations. Most jurors actually take their job seriously and follow the legal charges given to them by judges. The scale of internet talk about “jury nullification” is probably multiple orders of magnitude greater than actual instances of it happening in real life.
Considering many claims of self-defense have been sustained at trial against someone armed only with bare hands, I do not agree that the prosecutor has really proven that at all. They certainly attempted to argue that, but it’s unclear to me that they made an argument sufficient to convince a jury.
I’ll just say that, but for Rittenhouse’s own gun, it would be, I think, a pretty clear cut case that while the threat of physical battery with bare hands would constitute enough of a threat to warrant self-defense, it would not warrant lethal means of self-defense.
No, not true. Those were just some crazy kids up to a bit of skylarking and tom-foolery 
I don’t see it that way, I think a lot of people don’t really understand the seriousness of physical assault. People are beaten to death all the time, and if an assailant knocks you down, especially if he has friends, you can very easily be killed. If you restrict lethal self-defense you’re basically baking in a requirement that someone has to let someone beat them up really bad before they can decide to try and use a gun, except if someone has beaten them up they may not be able to use their gun or get it drawn.
I often point out how this would intersect with women and self-defense, too. One reason a gun is an effective self-defense tool for women is most women cannot easily physically resist an attacking male, a gun is a great equalizer, you shoot a guy center mass and I don’t care how small you are, he’s going to feel it. Imposing a requirement that someone has to hurt you really bad first before you can use self-defense is at odds with our legal traditions and history.
It’s fine that you don’t see it that way, but there is a reason self-defense law, including Wisconsin’s, tends to include the caveat “The actor may not intentionally use force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless the actor reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself.”
You would have us, in effect, remove that distinction. Had Rosenbaum been much bigger than Rittenhouse, or had Rosenbaum actually been joined by a mob you might have a point. But he wasn’t. It was Rittenhouse v. Rosenbaum, and but for Rittenhouse’s own gun there wouldn’t have been an imminent lethal threat to anyone.
Thanks for the clarification.
The results of this jury will be interesting. They have to draw some clear lines through a mass of confusion. I wasn’t proposing jury nullification. I believe they will be very serious.
I have served jury duty a few times. Each jury had a personality that reflected the local community.
No, I’m saying historically physical assault is considered something that can cause great bodily harm, as has been found in a great many self-defense cases. In fact I would say using lethal self-defense to stop a physical assault with fists is one of the more common successful self-defense arguments if you can prove the facts.
There’s a discussion still to be had about the extent to which lethal force can be used when the threat is limited to an unarmed assailant. I may come back to it when I have time to dig for some cites. But I do want to highlight that to some extent it may be (may be) irrelevant to this case. If Rittenhouse had just kept running rather than slowing, turning, and shooting, there wouldn’t have been any need to worry about control of the gun and he might well have escaped a physical beatdown without the need to resort to any force. Given that Wisconsin is not a stand-your-ground state, I honestly believe that may give the jury a window to convict Rittenhouse whether or not his bringing a gun into the situation means he effectively “gave” Rosenbaum a means to threaten lethal force (by ensuring that a fist fight might turn deadly over who had control of the gun).
Except the prosecution’s witness stated Rosenbaum was trying to get the gun. Should KR have just given it to him and hoped for the best? Hope that he could win in a wrestling match for the gun when his assailant is part of a crowd that’s against you?
I think McGinnis’ testimony really hurt the prosecution. It clearly showed Rosenbaum was the aggressor. The pathologist’s testimony really hurt the defense. Even if the jury believes KR was justified in using deadly force they have to believe each shot was justified and it looked like Rosenbaum was no longer a threat when he kept shooting.