I did not watch the jury selection but I was watching Robert Barnes on Viva Frei's channel. TL/DR: Barnes offered to assemble a team of lawyers and experts to prescreen the prospective jurors for free to make sure that a repeat of the Chauvin trial didn't happen where biased jurors snuck onto the jury. The moneyman of the Rittenhouse defense fund, who has the Rittenhouse family's ear, told Barnes to go away. The same moneyman hand picked Kyle's current defense attorney. Furthermore, some questioning by Rittenhouse's lawyer were repeats of info that was already in the juror questionnaires and the prosecution used the answers to kick favorable jurors off that might have gotten through had the lawyer not asked the questions that he had.
The first day went alright. The prosecution's opening was good. And the defense opening started off slow but ended on a strong note.
Today was bad. I was watching the livestream on Rekieta Law and the prosecution kept playing a video where the video recorder's narration kept calling Kyle's group a "militia" and other people in the video were saying that Kyle's rifle had a green laser on it (which is untrue). Kyle's lawyer was slow to object but eventually the judge went off on the prosecution and tabled the decision to tomorrow. Later, with the cop testifying, the defense barely objected at all. A bunch of videos, including the FBI drone footage and several other videos posted to social media, were never authenticated (the process in court where the person who made the video verifies that its authentic) and the prosecution even admits that the FBI video was edited. Then the defense cross examination was a snooze-fest that never lead to any particular point.
It's clear that Kyle's lawyer is in over his head and isn't capable of being the zealous advocate that he needs. Poor Kyle, he's going to get railroaded for political reasons and has been set up for failure by a grifter.
Notable grifter Lin Wood smelled money and pushed anyone with a soul out.
How much did Rittenhouse raise publicly? Like 700K? They're going to hang this kid out to dry to pocket that cash.
Not to necessarily offer a counter-point, but a different perspective, Andrew Branca is covering this case for Legal Insurrection and he did impressive work doing day-by-day coverage of the Zimmerman trial. His summary of today can be found here.
I'm not thrilled about Barnes not being able to do his thing, but it's not all bad news and the prosecution's case so far appears weak, and their own witnesses are sayings things favorable to the defense.
It could be better, it could also be a lot worse, and it ain't over yet.
To be fair to the Richards (lead for the defense), it could be possible that he holds the belief that the facts are so strongly in favor of Kyle (true) that the additional help was unnecessary (naïve) and that Barnes etc. were searching for clout/glory (possible.) That said, I also watched Rekieta Law and Barnes and I am inclined to believe their assessment that the defense Kyle is receiving is sub-par (at best.)
Great summary, and I agree it's bad. This case should be a slam dunk, open-and-shut self-defense. And there's a real chance his defense is blowing it. Indeed, many cases are lost in jury selection.
These monsters who are out there trying to smear and destroy a kid who showed far more restraint and discipline than BLM deserved, who are staging die-ins, who talk like he's a mass shooter à la Sandy Hook (looking at you, Facebook), who got Kyle booted off of GoFundMe and the like, who terrorize people at their homes and get them fired from their jobs for kicking him a few bucks, they need to be defeated. If even a total sweetheart like Rittenhouse isn't allowed to defend his life, that means none of us are.
We've seen Michael Strickland, we've seen the McCloskeys, we've seen Jake Gardner (RIP). BLM/Antifa can burn homes and businesses and pelt cops with bricks and suffer no consequence, but lift a finger to defend yourself from these demons and the whole force of the law will smash down on you.
So yeah I'm panicked about this case. Not just for this innocent kid but for all of us.
This kid is really getting the short end of the stick here. There are too many people who STILL believe Kyle wasn’t defending himself. If Kyle was brutally murdered, they wouldn’t give a shit, they would just think he deserved it for being there.
Nobody will defend him. Nobody will do shit. That's the blackpill of the day. We all hope that somebody will take action, but the truth is, we are all complicit in the injustice that Kyle may or may not face.
That's my concern as well. I haven't had the opportunity to watch this case any, but I feel like based on video evidence alone this should be an easy case, however it sounds to me like the defense is throwing it.
It's a summary of an hour long video.