I have a great deal of respect for most police officers. The job is difficult and most perform with professionalism. That does not mean that I would enter into a conspiracy with the police to do something illegal. Likewise, with Rittenhouse. Even if the Plaintiff portrays him as a wannabe cop, it does not mean he conspired with the police. Likewise, the Plaintiff will have to show that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense in shooting Huber. The burden of establishing self-defense is much less than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in a criminal trial. A fair-minded jury may be reluctant to translate Rittenhouse’s respect, affinity, for police, coupled with the multiple threats to his own life that night, into something as nefarious as a conspiracy to kill two people and injure a third. Of course, much will depend the Judge’s instructions to the jury on how to weigh the evidence presented at trial to determine if it establishes a conspiracy.
Good post. It’s a stretch all right, but all it needed was a tad of traction to start the lawfare.