A Northern Kentucky attorney is part of the legal team representing Kyle Rittenhouse in planned defamation lawsuits against “10 to 15” separate “big defendants,” including Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. While prosecutors portrayed Rittenhouse as a “tourist of chaos” for showing up with a semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Rittenhouse`s legal team maintains he acted in self-defense. On Tuesday morning, the jury begins deliberating on the account that is true. Unlike the predominantly black jury that Dimitrius helped build during the Simpson trial, the jury in the Rittenhouse trial is predominantly white. Rittenhouse`s $2 million legal defense allowed his lawyers to hold separate “convenient” jury trials before his trial — one in which 18-year-old Rittenhouse took the stand, and one in which he did not. The false jurors` more favorable reaction than Rittenhouse testified influenced the decision to let the teenager tell his story to the real jurors. His seemingly well-repeated testimony was probably the most important factor in the fact that the jury eventually let Rittenhouse go. Streams of money poured into a legal defense fund — more than enough for Rittenhouse to post his $2 million bond — but Wood left the case and took steps to enforce the false claim that Donald Trump had won the presidential election. During O.J. Simpson`s 1995 murder trial, Jo-Ellan Dimitrius developed the profile of the “perfect juror” — the kind of person Simpson`s defense team wanted in the jury box to secure an acquittal.
Now, nearly 30 years later, Dimitrius has helped select the jury to decide the guilt or innocence of another high-profile defendant — Kyle Rittenhouse, spokesman for Dimitrius & Associates, Dimitrius` consulting firm, confirmed to The Washington Post. Rittenhouse`s defense attorney, Mark Richards, told the Post in an email that Dimitrius was “a valued member of the defense team.” Although he did not specify their exact role. Doug Kelley, deputy chief medical officer for Milwaukee County, testified that Huber died from a single gunshot wound to the chest that caused blood loss and significant trauma to the heart and lungs. During that time, Rosenbaum suffered multiple gunshot wounds, Kelley said, including the groin, hand, thigh and back. Kelley testified that Rosenbaum`s gunshot wound to the back was the fatal wound, with the bullet hitting his lungs and liver. Rosenbaum`s back injury could prove significant, as Rittenhouse`s defense team is expected to argue that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. His legal work with Rittenhouse was first reported Thursday morning on Fox Digital News. Kyle Rittenhouse`s defense team formally requested a flawed trial based on a prosecutor`s conduct and questioning while Rittenhouse was on the witness stand. The motion called for a flawed trial with prejudice, meaning that if approved, the state cannot bring charges against Rittenhouse. McMurtry told Fox News that Rittenhouse`s legal team is preparing to file defamation lawsuits against large corporations and prominent figures. He said he was “hired to lead efforts to determine who to pursue, when to continue, where to continue.” It was reported that Wood threatened to sue Richards for defamation of his lawful conduct.
Many of these cases were highly publicized, and Dimitrius worked for both plaintiffs and defendants. She was hired by prosecutors to counsel in the sexual assault case against NBA star Kobe Bryant, who never went to court. She helped select the jury that ultimately paid $80 million to Warner Bros. Francis Ford Coppola in a dispute over a Pinocchio film that was never made. And in 2004, Dimitrius cooperated with Scott Peterson`s defense team, a closely watched case in which the San Francisco Bay Area man was eventually convicted of murdering his wife. Although the level of training of jurors in the Simpson trial is not known, the defense team succeeded in the other criteria. Of the 12 judges, eight were black, including six women and two men. In the days following the shooting, Rittenhouse — who brought an AR rifle to a protest and said it was protecting a foreigner`s property — was first represented by attorneys John Pierce and Lin Wood, who portrayed Rittenhouse as a defender of freedom and a patriot exercising his right to bear arms. Pierce tweeted a video in which Rittenhouse calls from a prison in Illinois, the neighboring state where he lives, and thanks his supporters. A video posted by a group affiliated with its legal team said Rittenhouse was being “sacrificed by politicians” whose “ultimate goal” was to stop the “constitutional right of all citizens to defend our communities.” “These guys have a customer who is human. that`s what they`re rightly focusing on,” said Dean Strang, a criminal defense attorney and professor at Loyola University`s Chicago School of Law.
Strang, who spoke to the AP ahead of Friday`s verdict and was not related to the case, said Richards and Chirafisi saw Rittenhouse “as an 18-year-old kid who got into a lot of trouble, more than he could handle.” A veteran of the court, Richards served as a prosecutor in Racine and Kenosha counties in the late 1980s before opening his own criminal defense law firm in 1990. Chirafisi is also a former prosecutor and has been practicing as a lawyer for over 20 years. His law firm is located in Madison. Rittenhouse`s lawyers argued that he was acting in self-defense that day when he killed Rosenbaum and Huber and wounded Großkreutz. It is not known exactly what services Dimitrius was hired for Rittenhouse`s defense or how long she helped. When asked, the spokesman did not respond and Dimitrius did not respond to calls from the Post. Some people have wondered how this case in which a white man killed two white men and seriously injured another implicates race. But it`s impossible to imagine the right embracing the cause of a young black man who brought a semi-automatic rifle, say, took him to a “stop the robbery” rally and ended up killing two people and blowing the arm of another.
For Rittenhouse enthusiasts, its whiteness is an integral part of its appeal. In a fiery moment of the trial, after the defense objected to the questioning of prosecutor Thomas Binger, Chirafisi implied that Binger was trying to provoke a failed trial because the state was doing badly. They repeatedly focused on the two minutes and 55 seconds the shooting took place — the critical moments when Rittenhouse, then 17, said he felt threatened and pulled the trigger. “I wasn`t a lawyer advocating for a cause,” Wood said. “The response has a mission that includes the right to bear arms and self-defense.” Kelley also confirmed that Rosenbaum fell forward and didn`t move away when he was shot in the back by Rittenhouse — an important detail when the defense tried to prove that Rittenhouse didn`t pursue Rosenbaum or that Rittenhouse didn`t shoot when Rosenbaum fled. Dimitrius & Associates offers a range of consulting services, according to its website, including jury selection in court, jury profiling, focus groups, mock trials and post-verdict interviews. Dimitrius deliberated in more than 1,000 trials and selected more than 600 jurors, according to the website. The coroner who performed autopsies on the two men shot by Rittenhouse testified Tuesday, describing their fatal injuries to the jury. Rittenhouse arrived in Kenosha on the third day of protests after police shot Jacob Blake, a paralyzed black man, in August 2020. The protests became destructive, cars and buildings were set on fire.
Eugene Robinson: Kyle Rittenhouse`s acquittal shouldn`t be a green light for other armed vigilantes McMurtry has represented Sandman against several mainstream media outlets, claiming they portrayed him as a white nationalist after a viral video showed him in January. 18, 2019, near a Native American in Washington, D.C. This was evident during Richards` closing argument, when he looked at the prosecutor`s table in a loud voice and repeatedly accused Binger of lying. The jurors seemed bewitched. Richards reiterated his dislike for the way prosecutors presented their case Friday. Visual Forensics: How Two Men`s Paths Intersected in a Meeting That Divided the Nation During cross-examination, prosecutors questioned Rittenhouse about statements he had made before the shooting. The judge had previously declared these statements inadmissible. Fox News reported that McMurtry said Facebook said Rittenhouse was “involved in a mass murder incident.” Here, I must say that the issue is not that Rittenhouse had the means to finance his defence, but rather that the other accused should have the same benefit. Of course, I hope that every of the more than 10 million people arrested each year in the United States – most of them poor people of color – will have their constitutional right to effective legal assistance expanded. Too many are forced to rely on underfunded or overburdened court-appointed lawyers – not comparable to the prosecutor`s budget.
James Hohmann: Kyle Rittenhouse has been found not guilty. This does not mean that he is morally innocent. Regardless of what went on behind the scenes, Richards and Chirafis` strategy in court was clear: get the jury to consider Rittenhouse a terrified teenager who shot to save his life. This defence seems to be weakening. Perhaps that`s why, with closing arguments scheduled for Monday, defendant William “Roddie” Bryan`s attorney reportedly asked prosecutors if his client could handle a plea.
