Kyle Rittenhouse Murdered Two People

 Jury nullification is when the defendant is guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but the jury chooses to return a not guilty verdict anyway. This used to happen a lot in the United States, when Northern juries would refuse to convict escaped slaves, and, quite darkly, when Southern juries would refuse to convict KKK lynch mobs.

There is some process to choosing a jury - indeed, entire television shows, such as CBS’s Bull, are devoted to it. In Bull, a talented lawyer picks the jurors he believes is most likely to return a not guilty verdict. Jury selection is shown in this show to be a science - yet the decisions made by the titular character seem to be made on little more than gut instinct. Either way, it is a showcase in how flawed a system must be to allow someone who is being prosecuted to have a say on who will have a say if they are guilty.

Kyle Rittenhouse shot two people, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, dead at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. He did not act in self defence - he illegally carried a weapon across state lines with the intention of using it on protestors. This should be a clear cut case, he clearly murdered those two people. However, the context of these murders was apparently enough to convince 12 of his peers from Wisconsin that he is not guilty. Jury deliberations are entirely secret, so it is not known how much jury selection, or jury nullification, played a part. What is known is that 12 Americans were unanimous in letting a murderer walk free, simply because he murdered people that were attending a Black Lives Matter protest. From an international onlooker this is of course a shock, and strikes eerily similar to the juries who 100 years ago would not convict KKK lynch mobs.

Rittenhouse himself has been doing significant media rounds since his trial verdict. In particular, he has tried to refute that he is a white supremacist, claiming that he supports BLM and threatening to sue Joe Biden for claiming he is a racist. This seems at odds with his actions of turning up at a BLM rally and shooting protesters. Even more bizarre is the Republican Party’s attitude to Rittenhouse - they on the whole love that he murdered two BLM supporters, and in an unusual twist two Republican congressmen said they would arm wrestle to decide which one of them will get to have Rittenhouse as an intern; Rittenhouse has not commented on whether he would accept a congressional internship.

Ultimately, Republican support for Rittenhouse points to one incredibly dangerous fact - as far as they are concerned the culture wars are an actual war, where shedding the blood of your political opponents is not only justifiable, but considered a way to get ahead. Even with Trump gone and Biden steadying the ship somewhat, it is a remarkably uncomfortable place for America to be when one of the two main parties believes this. What happens when the violence of the right spills over again?