The ‘Holy God Moment’ In the Rittenhouse Trial That Will Stop You In Your Tracks

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse and the character of Kyle Rittenhouse himself, is a saga that if you wrote it in a screenplay, nobody would believe it. Who would believe a 17-year-old vigilante who got his mommy to drive him across state lines, armed with an assault rifle, so that he could shoot at the libs? And then having shot two men dead, he became the darling of the right-wing, who proceeded to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense?

Then, as you may recall, he hired none other than Lin Wood, we presume between two of Wood’s visions. Wood was very captivated by the idea that he was Christ incarnate in those days. He would call his law partners at all hours of the night and speak of his divine revelations.

Alas, the Wood/Rittenhouse attorney client relationship soured, to say the least. Take just a moment to glance back over your shoulder at this.

In all events, Rittenhouse got rid of Wood and went on to lawyer John Pierce, who was attempting to represent everybody who had been arrested for rioting at the Capitol. That didn’t pan out and then Rittenhouse hired defense counsel Mark Richards and here we are at this show stopping moment in a trial filled with show stoppers.

Nobody can spin a yarn better than Charlie Pierce, so let’s let him tell it. Esquire:

After I shut up the shebeen for the night on Monday, there came a single line in the closing argument for the defense in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial that stopped me cold in the midst of closing the shutters and turning off the vintage “Leinenkugel’s” neon signs on the wall. In support of the notion that Rittenhouse’s killings were “privileged” under Wisconsin law as self-defense, defense attorney Mark Richards made a point to the jury that seemed curious at the time and looks even worse upon reflection. Key to his presentation was that Rittenhouse only fired his AR-15 four times and, as a corollary, that Rittenhouse wasn’t an “active shooter” as the prosecutor claimed, because he only killed two people and he didn’t simply open up on the crowds around him. Then, Richards went on:

“Ladies and gentlemen, other people in this community have shot somebody seven times — and it’s been found to be OK. My client did it four times.”

This was a Holy God moment to end all Holy God moments. Clearly, Richards was referring to the shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey. That was the incident that prompted the disturbances in that city into which Rittenhouse decided to inject himself last August. The same DA’s office that is trying to convict Rittenhouse decided not to prosecute Sheskey. The federal prosecutors took a pass as well. So, Richards seemed to be arguing, if Sheskey walked, his client should as well. After all, Rittenhouse only fired four times.

That is horrifying enough on its face. And even if you think the DA somehow deserves to have its decision on Sheskey thrown back at it, the idea that the actions of a police officer are equatable in any way with the actions of a 17-year-old civilian is an open invitation to vigilantism and citizen posses running wild in the streets. I have no brief for Sheskey; as the late Murray Kempton once wrote of a murder defendant, “She lost me after the third bullet.” Sheskey lost me after the second shot. But he was a credentialed law-enforcement professional. Kyle Rittenhouse was a self-deputized gunman shopping for trouble. The difference is stark, and Richards massively overreached in drawing the parallel. I’m surprised his co-counsel didn’t leap up and tackle him.

But co-counsel didn’t tackle him and opposing counsel didn’t yell “Objection” — and in point of fact, maybe you can’t object to something said in a closing argument, procedurally speaking. I never considered the issue before just this moment and if there was a case in evidence that addressed this point, I must not have read it. In any event, un-objected to and into the record it went.

Rittenhouse’s lawyer actually mis-cast his vigilante punk client as operating under the same color of authority as a police officer, Sheksey, and since Sheksey walked, so should Rittenhouse. And if Rittenhouse is, God forbid, acquitted under that rationale, what a precedent it sends for all vigilantes and protests to come.

One can only hope that the jurors will be as appalled upon listening to this inapposite and inaccurate characterization as we are.