Possible Concomitant Consequences

I have not been closely following the case of Kyle Rittenhouse.  Rittenhouse is the Illinois teenager who says he traveled to Wisconsin with his assault rifle to defend people and businesses from rioters.  He is accused of killing two people and wounding another person while he was in Wisconsin.  There is video evidence showing he shot them.

I did take notice when the trial judge, Bruce Schroeder, ruled that prosecutors could not use the term "victim" or "alleged victim" to describe the people who were killed or shot.  I believe I read he thought that calling these people "victims" would bias the jury against Rittenhouse when he has yet to be convicted of anything.  I don't think that explanation makes sense.

Dictionary.com defines victim as "a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action...".  These victims were injured.  Whether or not they were injured by Rittenhouse, and if they were, whether or not the injuries were legally justified is what this trial is all about.  We won't know if these people were victims of Rittenhouse until the trial is completed so why not use the term "alleged victims".  The term "alleged" is just acknowledging that this is what the trial is going to determine.  

But the judge has legal training and experience that I don't have, so I was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.  At least I was until he expanded his ruling.

He went on to say the defense could use the terms "rioters", "looters" and "arsonists" to describe the people who were shot if the the defense presented evidence supporting these descriptions.  

What?

These people have not been convicted of any crime so why can they be labelled by the court as law breakers?   The judge is not willing to allow possible negative bias against Rittenhouse during the trial, OK, but he has no problem labeling the victims as felons and giving Rittenhouse backing from the bench for any self-defense claims.  

I thought justice was supposed to be blind. I don't know of any charges the wounded person is facing. If there are any crimes, they would be alleged until he is convicted.  The two victims who were killed can't be tried or convicted.  They can't defend themselves, so why can't we at least call them "alleged victims"?

I would imagine the prosecutors will call Rittenhouse a murderer which presumes there are victims. So if prosecutors can't call them "victims" what do they call them?  They are not plaintiffs.  How about "possible concomitant consequences"?

 This blog was originally written in November, 2021, before Rittenhouse was acquitted.

Pardon The Fall Guy?

Many conservatives are crying for an immediate pardon for Lewis Libby. Some have been spinning and twisting so creatively to prove that this case is a travesty of justice they should be given auditions with Cirque du Soleil.

Here are some arguments for a pardon.

How can you punish a man when no crime was committed? Prosecutor Fitzgerald was given the task to determine if a law had been broken and he determined that it had not. Nothing wrong with that. Prosecutors are not expected to return an indictment in every case they investigate. If they were, what kind of justice would that be?

In the process of the investigation Mr. Libby broke the law by lying under oath. Should Prosecutor Fitzgerald have ignored that because no one was indicted for the original crime being investigated?

I'm standing on the street and see a man break the window of a jewelry store, run in, grab a watch and run out. As he runs by I trip him. While he is down I take the watch from him and leave. The original crook gets away and is never caught. I later pawn the watch. Have I committed any crime? If I were caught, could I claim innocence of any crime since it would be unjust to punish me for stealing a watch that was already stolen? Could I claim that just because the first crook was never convicted, I shouldn't be convicted?

If convicted, do I deserve a pardon?

Two of the jurors in the Libby trial said they would be happy to see Mr. Libby pardoned. Conservatives have jumped on this as proof that the conviction was unjust and a pardon is appropriate. What?????? These are the jurors who convicted Mr. Libby. They found that he committed a crime. They have sympathy for him and wouldn't mind a pardon because they think he is a fall guy. Conservatives........wake up..........the jurors think Mr. Libby is guilty and they think others were also guilty of crimes. You are agreeing with jurors who think there was a band of crooks, possibly including the Vice President. They are sorry only one person was convicted. A pardon based on this line of reasoning is an admission that Mr. Libby and other people were guilty of crimes.

The injustice in this case is that there was a secret attempt to discredit a political opponent that originated in and was directed from the Office of the Vice President. The administration didn't stand up in the press room and say Ambassador Wilson is wrong and here are the facts as we see them. They didn't publicly confront Ambassador Wilson and say that they believed he was pursuing his own political agenda. They secretly used the power of the government to discredit the man and his wife. A wife that didn't just work at Wal-Mart. She worked at the CIA! They didn't stand at the podium and say Ambassador Wilson wasn't sent by the Vice President, he was sent by his wife who works at the CIA. They didn't say this publicly. The weasels leaked their story to the press and then denied they were the source. Why didn't they just stand up and say these things? Because it was easier to allow other people to hide their lies than to publicly face the facts. Is this administration in a war with terrorists or their political opponents?

Is the air in Washington DC so polluted that people who work there lose their judgement and common sense?

By the way, I predict that if Mr. Libby's conviction stands, President Bush will give him a pardon. I just hope he doesn't also give him the Medal of Freedom.