Judging Freedom - Rittenhouse Analysis & NAACP Response

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

On Judging Freedom today, Judge Andrew Napolitano provides an analysis of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict that was rendered in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Judge also responds to the comments that NAACP President Derrick Johnson made this past Sunday on CBS' "Face The Nation" program. Finally, the Judge takes your questions and answers them #Rittenhouse #JudgeNapolitan #NAACPSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. hello my friends judge andrew napolitano here welcome to judging freedom sort of a different segment today if you will it's just you and me i'm going to talk about a topic that's been dominating the news of lately the kyle rittenhouse trial, and I'll talk about the laws that were implicated and how and why the trial ended up, in my opinion, the way it did. Then I'm going to run some tapes from the president of the NAACP, who has a very different view of this than I do, and then I'll comment on what he said. And then I'm going to read some questions from some of you, which have delighted me, and I'm thrilled to reply to them. The essence of the Kyle Rittenhouse case was what lawyers call self-defense.

Now, we all know what self-defense is. Somebody takes a swing at you, you duck. Somebody lands the swing, you punch back. Somebody points a gun at you, and you have your own gun. You make a split second instantaneous decision to save your own life. That is human nature. And because it's human nature, the right to self-defense protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution is a natural human right. That right doesn't come from the government, like the right to vote or the right to drive on a government roadway. That right comes from your humanity, from within you.

And the Supreme Court has held that the right to keep and bear arms is a modern, natural extension of the right to self-defense. So that brings us to the essence of the Kyle Rittenhouse case, which was, did he shoot in order to stay alive? And the jury found that he did. Here's how it works. When a defendant is charged with murder, as Rittenhouse was, he then can remain silent. He doesn't have to say anything to the government. Or he can tell the government through his lawyers he has a defense. The defense is, it wasn't me. I wasn't there. Or the defense is, yeah, it was me. I was there. But I was defending my own life. It was self-defense. He raised that second defense, self-defense. Once he makes a prima facie showing of self-defense, a basic rational explanation that he made a decision in order to defend himself. Then the obligation of addressing self-defense shifts from the

defendant to the prosecution. The prosecution then must disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, that is not the law in every state. It's the law in most states, including Wisconsin. So once Rittenhouse got on the witness stand and during his direct examination and during his cross-examination said there was chaos. Somebody threatened my life.. Somebody threatened my life. Three people threatened my life. I had to make a split-second decision to stay alive. He's made this basic defense. He's offered it. He's given it to the jury in a rational way. Then it's the obligation of the government to disprove the defense, and the government failed to do that.

So notwithstanding all of the other evidence, if the government fails to disprove self-defense, then the defendant is acquitted. That's at least the way it's supposed to work and the way it worked in the Rittenhouse case. Now, we don't know for sure what was in the minds of the jurors. They took four days to resolve this. There are many other extraneous issues in the case. Why did the prosecution give a degraded version of the video to the defense? Did they tamper with the video? Why did the prosecution show a tape to the jury that the court had explicitly excluded? Why did the prosecutor pick up the weapon, the AR-15, put his finger on the trigger like Alec Baldwin in a movie set, aim the weapon at the wall and pretend he was about to shoot it? I mean, this type of histrionic is

absolutely prohibited in a courtroom. All those are extraneous issues. Why didn't the judge grant a mistrial as most judges would have? I think he did the right thing. I think he knew that the jury was going to acquit Kyle Rittenhouse, and it would be far better for written house and for the concept of justice, as well as for the public at large, if written house is acquitted by a jury, rather than the case is thrown out by the judge. When the case is thrown out by a judge, a mistrial, ordinarily the government has the opportunity to try him again, unless the judge finds that the mistrial was caused intentionally by the state. Why would the state intentionally sabotage its own case? Well, it thinks it's going to lose its case. Prosecutors have been known to sabotage their cases, so a mistrial is declared

and they get another bite at the apple. But if judges are smart enough, astute enough, prudent enough to see through that, they then engage in what's called a dismissal with prejudice, meaning it can never be retried again. Nevertheless, we didn't reach that point because the jury rendered its verdict of not guilty. Now, not everyone agrees with this. Fortunately uh there weren't the riots in the streets that the government uh and and the media feared but the head of the naacp the president of the naacp derrick johnson uh was recently on cbs news here's what he said here you have a 17 year old who illegally purchased a gun travel across state lines to protect property that was not his for owners that who did not invite him and he put himself in harm's way based on the rhetoric that he's seen on social media platforms so a couple of things here uh the court ruled that

the gun was not acquired or possessed illegally. It was a very technical ruling based upon the precise wording of the Wisconsin law. But nevertheless, the charge of the unlawful purchase and the unlawful possession of the weapon was thrown out. And we also know that the weapon wasn't put into his hands until he was in Wisconsin. So he didn't cross state lines. Why are people, why were they saying he, so he didn't cross state lines. Why are people, why were they saying he crossed state lines? He crossed state lines. Somebody probably suggested that to my colleagues in the media, because if he did cross state lines for the purpose of committing a crime, that is arguably a federal crime, and that would enable the federal, the U.S. Department of Justice to indict him, even though he's already been acquitted by a jury in Wisconsin. So the fact that he did not cross state lines with a weapon in his hands, an unlawful weapon for the purpose of committing a crime in the state to

which he was going, Wisconsin. The fact that that did not happen undermines the argument that the feds are in a position to prosecute him. The other argument that Mr. Johnson makes is that the defendant knowingly put himself in harm's way. Yes, he did. He did put himself in harm's way. That does not negate his ability to engage in self-defense. Often self-defense is a split second decision. Somebody's threatening to kill me. What do I do? You don't even think about it. Someone's pointing a gun at you or says, I have a gun. I'm about to kill you. And you have your own gun. You're going to pull the trigger. You're not going to engage in some serious philosophical, moral, legal, political rationalization. You're just going to do what

your instincts tell you to do. Any reasonable person would do that, and the jury agreed. Here's Mr. Johnson again. This trial for us is a warning shot that vigilante justice is allowed in this country or in particular communities. Well, I wouldn't call this vigilante animated about this since it was not a racial case. Everybody in the case was the same race. I guess what Mr. Johnson is trying to say is because he was white, he was acquitted. If he had been black, he would have been convicted. That's a stretch. We don't know that that is the case.

I feared that the jury would engage in sort of a general justice, meaning they would do what they thought was the right thing for the community. The community was howling for Rittenhouse's neck. We know that. If they had done what they thought the community wanted, well, that wouldn't have been justice under the American system. That would have been mob rule under the American system. The defendant should be acquitted or convicted based solely on the evidence in the courtroom, not based at all on what the jury fears might result from a conviction or an acquittal, and not based at all on what the

crowds or the editorial writers or the folks in the media outside the courtroom are saying. So it's a tough case. Two people are dead, one is permanently injured. The defendant is alive and well, probably emotionally scarred by this, but alive and well. Nevertheless, I do believe that justice was done. Now, if you bear with me for a minute, we have a new section, a new part of Judging Freedom, which we're introducing today, and I'm going to be doing this on a regular basis from now on. I love when you email me, whether it's a question about the law or a question about the Constitution, even if it's a question about something I didn't discuss in the video. A, it gets my juices flowing, and B, it lets me connect directly with you. So the first of these is from Curtis Scott.

It's a long question, Curtis, so I'm not going to read the full question, but basically you want to know if the government giving away money, federal government giving away money is constitutional. Well, in my opinion, it's unconstitutional. You're talking about the stimulus checks. In my opinion, it's unconstitutional because the constitution does not authorize the federal government to do that. The federal government is one of limited powers. It may only do what the Constitution

authorizes it to do. The list of powers delegated to the federal government are right there in the Constitution, and the right to give away money is not among them. However, the Supreme Court disagrees. The Supreme Court says those powers only regulate the government when it wants to regulate behavior, but they don't regulate the government when it wants to spend money. Stated differently, the Supreme Court has ruled for better or for worse, in my opinion, for worse, that the federal government can spend its money on anything it wants. It can only regulate behavior in the areas that are delegated to it. But when it comes to spending, it can spend money however it wants. of course, in the big government Leviathan monster that we have in Washington, D.C. today, because among the way the feds spend their money is to bribe the states. Another subject for another question, by giving the states cash in return for state governments doing what they want.

Another interesting question. We don't have this person's name. This person refers to him or herself as truth seeker. Very nice, nice handle. And the truth seeker question is when lobbyists approach members of Congress, is that considered a bribe or is it considered free speech? Or does it divert the attention of members of Congress from the well-being of their constituents to the needs of the lobbyists. A very interesting subject matter. The Supreme Court has said that this is free speech. Now, can the lobbyists give the member of Congress something of value? Yes, it can be a meal up to $100. If it's more than $100, the member of Congress has to pay for everything from $100 and one cent north. But from $100.01 north.

But from $100 down, the lobbyists can give the money. And then, of course, the member of Congress has to report. I met with a lobbyist from, I'll just throw something out, the AARP, American Association of Retired Persons. Does this divert the lobbyists' attention and heart from the needs of the constituents to the needs of the lobbyist it might but the supreme court has said it's free speech so the member of congress is never forced to listen to lobbyists but they often do do they do the lobbyists influence them of course they do so if you can find that rare member of Congress who says, I'm not going to accept a lunch or a breakfast from a lobbyist and I'm not even going to talk to a lobbyist,

good luck. It'll be tough to find that person, that member of Congress, particularly with a ruling from the Supreme Court. I hope this has helped. I hope you've enjoyed it. I'll do it from time to time. I'm even going to begin discussing sections of the Constitution. You'll see how what Madison, James Madison, wrote the Constitution intended is so radically different from the way the Constitution is interpreted today. I hope this has been of a help to you. I hope you have a wonderful and a blessed Thanksgiving. Judge Napolitano here on Judging Freedom.