Posted on 11/15/2021 9:25:32 AM PST by blam
Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says Kyle Rittenhouse “should be acquitted” of killing two men and wounding a third during riots and protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and he should file defamation lawsuits against media outlets for claiming that he’s guilty of murder.
“If I were a juror, I would vote that there was reasonable doubt [and] that he did act in self-defense,” Dershowitz told Newsmax on Nov. 13.
Rittenhouse, if acquitted, should then “bring lawsuits” against corporate news outlets for articles claiming the teen engaged in “vigilante justice,” Dershowitz said.
“It’s CNN who is involved in vigilante justice. It’s The New Yorker that’s guilty of vigilante justice,” he said.
Several years ago, then-Kentucky high school student Nicholas Sandmann filed defamation suits against CNN, The Washington Post, and other outlets following accusations of racism against him after a viral video showed an encounter with a Native American activist in Washington, D.C. Sandmann ended up reaching a settlement with CNN and The Washington Post last year.
“The idea is to make the media accountable for deliberate and willful lies,” said Dershowitz, referring to Sandmann’s case.
Now, left-leaning media outlets “want an outcome” in the trial, Dershowitz said.
“They want a result and if they don’t get their results, and you know this seeps through to the jury. I worry that the jury could be influenced by the fear that if they vote to acquit, they’ll be called racist and they’ll be attacked.”
Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with killing Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, during protests and rioting that followed a police-involved shooting. Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty.
According to video footage of the incident, both Huber and Grosskreutz chased Rittenhouse as he was trying to run toward police after shooting Rosenbaum. Several videos and photos also show Huber hitting Rittenhouse with a skateboard, while Grosskreutz, who himself was armed with a handgun, testified last week that he thought Huber was attempting to attack Rittenhouse.
Dershowitz’s remarks come after Judge Bruce Schroeder, the presiding judge in the case, said he may allow the jury to consider several lesser charges in addition to the murder charges that prosecutors brought against Rittenhouse.
On Nov. 12, he told Rittenhouse that with the lesser charges, “You’re raising the risk of conviction, although you’re avoiding the possibility that the jury will end up compromising on the more serious crime.”
The judge continued, “You’re also decreasing the risk that you’ll end up with a second trial because the jury is unable to agree.” Rittenhouse confirmed that he understood.
Dershowitz has a long history of taking positions when he feels something is against our Constitution even though those position are unpopular. He has appealed some cases that were very unpopular.
This is good news. It should strike fear in the hearts of the prosecutora and the judge. They better cross their t's and dot their i's. If they don't they are in deep do do.
Judges can act out of fear too.
Given that the trial is in Wisconsin, it’s not surprising to find German surnames. A lot of Germans immigrated to Wisconsin in the 19th century.
That’s interesting. Do you know the history of why German’s migrated to Wisconsin? Similar climate? Farming?
I had three great-great-grandparents who were born in Germany. One came first to Indiana, later moved to Illinois, and finally to Kansas. Another (that man's second wife) came directly to Illinois. There were lot of Germans in that county--a county history (published with the money from the people who planned to buy the book) praised the Germans as the fellow-countrymen of Schiller.
The third one went first to upstate New York, later to Kansas.
I had an aunt by marriage, German ancestry, who was born in Minnesota. My first cousin's husband, who was half-German and half-Slovene, was born in Wisconsin.
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