Understanding the Law, What Took the Rittenhouse Jury So Long, and the Appeals Process
The jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts.
by Dov Fischer
November 19, 2021, 11:36 AM
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
Well, what took them so long? He was clearly innocent.
Well, it’s complicated. A proper jury should take some time. Not forever and a day, but also not five minutes. A trial is built not on the falsehoods of the mainstream media but on truth and facts, at least as close as fairness can get us to them. So the Left Media lied and lied, but the jury got to the truth. That is why there are so many rules of evidence. Let’s look at some of those rules:
We all have heard of “hearsay.” Technically, every law student learns the mantra-definition that “hearsay” is an “out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein.” In other words, testimony must be uttered directly in court, under oath, before the fact-finder (who can be either a jury or a single judge), in the presence of the accused. The Sixth Amendment guarantees an accused the right to have testimony against him or her presented in his or her presence, to confront his or her accuser. Sure beats Joy Reid! The Seventh Amendment guarantees a right to a jury in criminal cases. Sure beats MSNBC! (The Fourth, not at play here, protects against unlawful searches and seizures; the Fifth, a bit at play in Rittenhouse, protects against compelling someone to testify against himself or herself; and the Eighth, protects against cruel and unusual punishment — like having a cable-TV provider who offers only MSNBC.)
What is wrong with hearsay? Why can’t a jury hear: “Last week, at the supermarket, my friend Joe told me that Sven admitted to him what really happened”? Well, you don’t need a law degree to kind of figure this out. Every kid has had a friend who told us something that we believed, and later we saw the friend would not stand behind his or her word. Jill told me that Geraldine stole the cookie in the cookie jar. Mom and Dad come home and ask: “Who stole it?” Jill and Geraldine both are there, and I tell my parents “Geraldine stole it.” Geraldine denies and starts screaming at me. I say: “Don’t lie. Jill saw you. She was right there when it happened. She told me so.” And then Jill blurts out: “I never said that.”
But she did. She did say that. She only never expected I would disclose here, tattling in Geraldine’s presence on her tattling. So now we don’t know whether Jill was being honest then, or what.
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https://spectator.org/understanding-the-law-what-takes-a-rittenhouse-jury-so-long-and-the-appeals-process/
