Last night I learned about the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. I was quite surprised to hear that he was found not guilty on all charges. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised anymore, just continually disturbed. Last February, I wrote a post (here) comparing Rittenhouse (the armed 17-year-old who killed two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020), to Brandon Bernard. Brandon Bernard was an African American man who was executed almost a year ago for being affiliated with a killing over 30 years ago when he was 18 years old, despite jurors who convicted him pleading that the decision be reversed. At that point, Rittenhouse had merely been released on bond. Now that he has been acquitted altogether, the contradiction just looks that much bigger.
Today was one of those days where I couldn't shake my disturbance. The only way to quench it was to read up, and now to write my thoughts. I read many articles on the verdict, watched some videos from the trials, and conversed online with some folks. Perhaps what struck me the hardest was a statement by Anthony Huber's parents. This statement can be found in this article.
Huber was the second man shot and killed that night. He was unarmed, like the first. He reacted to Rittenhouse shooting the first man, Joseph Rosenbaum, and likely sought to apprehend him and disarm him. I specifically remember my criminal law instructor telling us that self-defense is a very hard defense to establish to justify a killing. We read several cases that proved what he said, with situations like pregnant woman going to jail for killing their abusive husbands while under attack. I see that in Wisconsin it's a bit easier to establish self defense because the burden lies on the prosecution to prove that the killer did not act in self defense, rather than the burden lying on the defense, which is the norm. But even so, the key word is reasonable. The jury has to believe that the defendant acted reasonably both in believing he was in imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, and that the amount of force he used was what a reasonable person would use.
So the jury was instructed to view the situation as a 17-year-old boy like Rittenhouse would. They were asked to view the situation where he was approached and pulled the trigger from that point of view, but they must not have been instructed to view the reasonableness of the creation of the situation itself. Was it reasonable that a 17-year-old be walking around a town he does not live in during emotional protests with a large deadly weapon like that, basically with the intention of protecting property? The situation in itself is extremely unreasonable.
Perhaps they should've aimed for a lower charge with the killings. It's not that I want the young man locked up for his whole life, but the message this complete acquittal sends is disturbing.
I also read that the verdict for the Ahmaud Arbery case should be decided and announced this upcoming week. I have investigated that case too. Arbery was not jogging in jogging clothes as some make it seem, (he had cargo shorts on), but was walking and jogging around the neighborhood where his family says he often jogs. He was seen on camera looking briefly into a house under construction. The cameras showed several others peeking in throughout the weeks and months prior. There was no theft, other than some little neighbor boys who took some plywood. The property owner said on the witness stand that he never asked the defendants to protect his home and he barely knows them. Both of these cases are not even in the realm of police brutality, which is trickier because of qualified immunity. The defendants are civilians practicing vigilantism.
I don't have anything else to say and there's nothing I can do. When that is the case, the only option is to pray, (not that prayer should be a last resort, by any means).
Lord, God, Jehovah, Yahweh, the Alpha and the Omega, the Begining and the End, please don't let them acquit those men, or at least the one that pulled the trigger. It pains me and I feel the pain of those who suffer from these injustices, this hate, this discrimination and devalution. I feel the pain of the Rittenhouse verdict and I fear the pain of an acquittal in the Arbery case. Please, may justice be served. May the jury's decision reflect your will. May there be healing. May the scales be balanced. May your kingdom come.
Amen. Below is my 4-year-old Gabriel's depiction of God. I guess he sees God as a sun-shaped house-like creature with a smile.
