Thread by @CBHessick

If you are wondering why the #Rittenshouse gun charge was thrown out just before the jury started to deliberate, Mike's got the relevant statutes below.
As for why it happened so late--that's because criminal procedure is TERRIBLE when it comes to resolving legal disputes . . . .

https://twitter.com/MikeSacksEsq/status/1460284668880818182

Criminal cases--like other cases--are sometimes a dispute about law, rather than a dispute about fact. That is to say, the defendant argues that what he did isn't illegal, not that he didn't actually do what the prosecution accuses him of.

Civil cases have a simple procedure for dealing with those legal disputes:
At the beginning of the case, the parties file briefs making their legal arguments, and then the judge decides based on those briefs what the law requires--either dismissing the case or letting it proceed.

If the judge in a civil suit says the thing isn't illegal, then the suit gets dismissed. (The plaintiff can appeal this decision & the judge can be reversed.)
If the judge decides it is illegal, then the case continues and the defendant has to wait until after trial to appeal.

This procedure in civil suits requires judges to make clear legal rulings. And it allows a decent number of opportunities for those legal rulings to be revered on appeal.

The result is a relatively clear set of laws that affect civil law suits.

The situation in criminal cases is different. And (unsurprisingly) it's much worse.

Judges routinely refuse to make legal rulings until just before a jury is supposed to decide a case. Those rulings often aren't well explained. And the law gets muddled with facts.

Perhaps more distressingly--because judges won't make legal rulings at the beginning of criminal cases, it forces defendants to take their case to trial

But going to trial is a huge gamble for defendants. Prosecutors can punish them for going to trial, so most defs plead guilty

The result is that innocent people--people who have done things that are LITERALLY NOT ILLEGAL--end up pleading guilty.

Also, the criminal law remains an utter incomprehensible mess because we don't get clear rulings from trial judges or clarification from appellate courts.

If you want to learn more about this problem--and how ludicrously easy it would be to fix--I highly recommend this @GB2d article on the topic. greenbag.org/v18n4/v18n4_ar…

@GB2d Finally, I want to point out exactly how crazy it is that this problem hasn't been fixed.
This problem disproportionately affects white collar defendants. The richest and most well connected people who get charged with crimes are the ones who need this rule changed the most.

@GB2d The fact that white collar defendants who have a lot of money and political clout can't fix this obvious defect--a fix that was made in the civil justice system many decades ago--let's you know exactly how rotten and punitive the criminal justice system is.

@GB2d And if you want to know more about how rotten and punitive the criminal justice system is, I've got you covered here: abramsbooks.com/product/punish…