*Correction: juries don’t “exonerate,” they acquit.
I am, of course, eliding the existence of “imperfect self defense” as a legal defense in some cases. Imperfect self-defense arises where a person believed they needed to use deadly force, but their belief was unreasonable or wrong. It typically arises in an intentional killing, where the…
*Correction: juries don’t “exonerate,” they acquit.
I am, of course, eliding the existence of “imperfect self defense” as a legal defense in some cases. Imperfect self-defense arises where a person believed they needed to use deadly force, but their belief was unreasonable or wrong. It typically arises in an intentional killing, where the defendant thought the victim was armed, but the victim was not.
I don’t recall whether Wisconsin has this defense, but typically it mitigates a some murders to manslaughter. Each State will have their own variants.
But the impairment on Rittenhouse’s moral self-defense claim in this case is not that he was wrong about the threat (though it appears he may have been). His moral self-defense claim is impaired by the fact that without a good justification he chose to provoke violence, and then when it was provoked he claims it as a justification to use deadly force.
So the extant “imperfect self-defense” claim is not a proper vehicle to allocate criminal culpability commensurate with his moral culpability based on any judgment that he provoked the violence by his presence. Something else is needed.
*Correction: juries don’t “exonerate,” they acquit.
I am, of course, eliding the existence of “imperfect self defense” as a legal defense in some cases. Imperfect self-defense arises where a person believed they needed to use deadly force, but their belief was unreasonable or wrong. It typically arises in an intentional killing, where the defendant thought the victim was armed, but the victim was not.
I don’t recall whether Wisconsin has this defense, but typically it mitigates a some murders to manslaughter. Each State will have their own variants.
But the impairment on Rittenhouse’s moral self-defense claim in this case is not that he was wrong about the threat (though it appears he may have been). His moral self-defense claim is impaired by the fact that without a good justification he chose to provoke violence, and then when it was provoked he claims it as a justification to use deadly force.
So the extant “imperfect self-defense” claim is not a proper vehicle to allocate criminal culpability commensurate with his moral culpability based on any judgment that he provoked the violence by his presence. Something else is needed.