On November 1, Kyle Rittenhouse will go on trial in a Wisconsin courtroom for killing two people and wounding a third during the disturbances in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer following the shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back by a police officer who was responding to a domestic disturbance call. The case popped up briefly again because, on October 8, federal prosecutors declined to prosecute the officer, Rusten Sheskey. On Tuesday, both sides in the upcoming Rittenhouse trial appeared before Judge Bruce Schroeder in Kenosha for a final motions hearing. It did not bode well for the prosecution. From WTMJ:
Prosecutors wanted the judge to prohibit the defense team from calling Huber, Rosenbaum and Grosskreutz as “rioters”, “looters”, or “arsonists.” The judge disagreed and compared it to the word, "victim," which he said he believes is a loaded term.
"What?" you may be saying. That thought occurred to the prosecutors, too.
"You mean to tell me if you in final argument you said to the jury, 'Kyle Rittenbouse is a cold blooded killer,' you don't think you'd be allowed to do that?" Judge Schroeder said. "I think I should be," Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said. "I think I should be able to call people a victim, too."
"So why can’t he call the victim an arsonist if that’s what he thinks he can prove?" Judge Schroeder said. Binger said argued that's a double standard. "Their behavior that night has nothing to do with this case unless it was witnessed by the defendant," Binger said.
Elsewhere in the session, Judge Schroeder allowed the defense to introduce evidence that Rittenhouse, who was driven up from Illinois with his rifle and then driven home after the shooting, was greeted rather warmly by the actual police that night. The prosecutors argued that doing so would imply that Rittenhouse was acting in some sort of informal law-enforcement capacity on the streets of Kenosha, instead of as a teenage gunslinger. The people he shot, including the two dead ones, will not be victims in the trial, but they may be rioters and looters. I think things are going very well.
Correction: To be precise, the judge said that the terms "rioters," "arsonists," and "looters" could only be used in closing arguments, and then only if the defense has proven that any of the three people Rittenhouse shot in fact were rioting, looting, and/or committing arson that night. They're still not "victims" as far as the judge is concerned, and this is merely a slightly less redolent form of bullshit.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
