Posted by bruceleefan on 11/22/2021 12:36:00 PM (view original):
Posted by dahsdebater on 11/22/2021 12:19:00 PM (view original):
Posted by bruceleefan on 11/22/2021 7:58:00 AM (view original):
Posted by laramiebob on 11/22/2021 7:25:00 AM (view original):
You're using TWITTER? as a source?? Not for me!
And just who is Matt Couch and WHY should I care?
I watched it.
You also have that opportunity but I know how you loathe actual knowledge.
ITS AN ACTUAL VIDEO OF ESPN TALKING HEADS
I actually saw this when it came on (don't watch the NBA telecast, but it came on after something I was watching, maybe PTI). I don't think I watched over 2 minutes worth of it, but I remember Richard Jefferson saying something along the lines of "this not guilty verdict means that everything Rittenhouse did was lawful." It does bother me a little bit that ESPN would broadcast that to a national audience, because it is so blatantly false. Regardless of whether the ESPN NBA analysts are in any way experts on the legal system, they have a national platform and people will trust them. It's unfortunate.
The prosecutors brought the wrong charges to trial and were likely to lose. That doesn't mean Rittenhouse didn't do anything illegal. It means the jury could not find him guilty of charges that were specifically tied to his firing of his weapon.
Not only did he say "this means everything Rittenhouse did was lawful" he elaborated and said Rittenhouse took a gun across state lines, which is also patently false and only infuriates the low information person tuning in to watch BB.
In your opinion what charge SHOULD have been brought?
I don't know the nuances of Wisconsin law, so I can't say for sure. To be honest, I haven't paid a ton of attention to this case because, frankly, I don't really care. I agree with what a lot of people on here seem to have been saying, which is that this is a trial that's been blown into national news but probably didn't need to be. I don't think it's a particularly important part of the political landscape. If nobody had been found guilty on a serious charge in the George Floyd case, I would have thought that was bad. If anyone had been found guilty on a serious charge in the Breonna Taylor case, I would have thought that was bad. Here? No strong feelings, I don't think any verdict says anything particularly important about the state of the legal system in the United States.
With that being said, I would say that I can't understand why the weapons charges were dropped. I don't know the specifics of the applicable laws in Wisconsin, but at least in most states - and Wisconsin is a fairly moderate state - no minor would have been able to legally carry an assault weapon in public. One generally needs to be 18 to be licensed for that firearm. So they could have gotten him on weapons charges. I think they could have potentially made it interesting if they had brought manslaughter charges instead of homicide, but again, this would depend on the particulars of the laws in that state. Generally speaking, whereas homicide charges are based around the act of killing the people we aren't allowed to call victims, in some states manslaughter charges center more around creating circumstances which endanger human life AND THEN also having someone die. Consider, for example, the analogue of vehicular manslaughter in which reckless and/or drunk driving is the behavior for which the defendant is being held accountable, not the actual act of hitting a person or vehicle. Self-defense is not necessarily a legitimate legal defense against manslaughter charges if the prosecutors can demonstrate that Rittenhouse contributed to creating the scenario in which he felt threatened. Alternatively, murder under adequate provocation is, in all states except New York, a condition under which charges of voluntary manslaughter might be pursued (the charge of voluntary manslaughter doesn't exist in New York). Two of the traditional scenarios of adequate provocation are assault and mutual combat. Either of those could be said to apply here.