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.
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.