Illinois teen arrested in fatal shooting at Kenosha protest, police say

The gun charge was dropped because of a motion that was allowed to remove it from the trial. The Jury never was allowed to consider it.

In fact several hours before closing arguments the Judge granted a defence motion to toss out the weapons charge so that meant it was never considered by the Judge or the Jury it was thrown out from consideration.

In the motion which was NOT part of the trial Rittenhouse's attorneys argued the charges should be excluded from trial because of an exception in the law that they said allows minors to possess shotguns and rifles as long as they're not short-barreled.

The Prosecutor argued that if the law was only meant for short barreled rifles that interpretation would render the entire law meaningless which was not the intent of the law.

The Judge felt that Rittenhouse's rifle's barrel was longer than 16 inches, the minimum barrel length defined in the state law precluded it from being applicable. So that interpretation of the law was made by the Judge alone ot preclude the Jury from being able to consider it at trial. He never allowed the Jury to consider the intent of the law or the issue because he threw it out.

The Judge could have let the Jury decide but preempted them and just threw it out.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/why-did-the-judge-drop-rittenhouse-s-gun-charge-1.5667080

The Judge felt there was sufficient ambiguity in the statute's wording to rule it out from being considered at trial. He followed a legal principle that ambiguity or poor wording should be read in favour of the accused and that is a well known legal principle.

The question is though, why did he wait only until the end of trial to hear the motion? If this was the case it should have been done at the beginning before the trial not right before jury deliberations.

The timing is questionable in that it tipped off the Jury of the Judge's opinions of the whole case. For that matter, the Judge also controlled words the prosecutor wasallowed to say but gave free reign to the Defence lawyers to use any words they wanted, could not use the word victims in regards to describing people shot, but the defence could call the people shot rioters.

The Judge also intervened to criticize prosecution questions on the first day of trial in front of the Jury rather than pull the Jury out first and his concerns were not based on legal principles of any kind and quite frankly in many courts would be considered blatant preferential interference.

As well the Judge asked the audience in front of the Jury to clap for a defence witness claimining it was War Memorial day and they should clap for him being a war vet. That act predisposed the Jury in favour of anything that witness would go on to share.

All that said, the Judge had the right to throw out the gun charge.

I look at that behaviour solely from a legal perspective and say in other states, some of the timing of what the Judge did and some of his actions might have led to asking for a mistrial.

The Prosecutor may have over reached as you said in trying to apply the statute or it could be argued the intent was not just to limit it to short barreled guns.

The problem is you have to be very clear in a statute or any Judge of any political bias can read it the way they want. I think the law was originally drafted in contemplation of youth using hand guns not assault rifles.

It could be that statute will be amended to take away reference to the length of the barrel.

 

Why would the judge allow the jury to contemplate a charge that was not based on legal code? That wouldn't make any sense.

I notice you did not address the prosecution violating Kyles constitutional rights 6 times during trial which would have allowed the judge to dismiss the trial with prejudice.

 

1. I did not address any "6 constitutional violations" because I am completely unaware they exist. Can you please give me the 6 examples you think violated Rittenhouse's constitutional rights and I would be pleased to comment on how they deal with the US constitution if they in fact do.

2. The gun charge was based on a statute not a code. The US when it has legal codes,generally use them as guidelines not as mandatory laws as a general rule. Statutes on the other hand would be mandatory to apply if in fact they are applicable. I made it clear in this present case the state statute NOT code, had wording that specified the statute was only applicable to short muzzle weapons so based on that specific limitation the Judge felt he did NOT even have to consider the law and he threw it out of being able to be considered. He decided that on a separate legal motion.

I also said the Judge did have the right to exclude allowing the Jury to consider the statute in its entirety or he could have let them decide whether the specific limit noted made the statuite applicable or not. He chose to throw it out and not let the Jury consider it. That is a fact.

The question I raised though is not whether he could, he had that right. The question was the timing of when he heard that motion. Had he done it before the trial started and the Jury was picked it would have enabled a more neutral outcome then waiting until just before the Jury was sent out to deliberate. That timing is highly questionable in how it might have influenced the Jury.

 

It's a fact the judge threw out the possession charge because the statute did not apply. You can go read it yourself and like the judge had to tell the prosecution, the title is not the statute.

It didn't influence the jury, it influenced the prosecution because they had it as their centerpiece and had to pivot to provocation which is where the last minute drone video suddenly appears. There would be NO reason the judge would allow a jury to consider a false charge.

I think you represent the two sides of this issue. Those that watched the trial and those that did not.