Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

I wonder if sharing my thoughts about the Kyle Rittenhouse on Twitter will leave me feeling that I've used my morning helpfully and productively.

I'm drawn to do it by some kind of masochistic compulsion.

I just have to do it. I know it won't make me happier, or improve the world, but I have to do it.

My fellow Americans: You've lost your minds. I'd like to help you find them again.

Let's review things you and every other American should have known by the age of five, if only from watching courtroom dramas.

1. In America, you are innocent until proven guilty. That means the burden of proving you guilty rests on the prosecution.

2. You can only be guilty of violating a law that already exists. This is the ancient principle of "Nulla poena sine lege." No crime without a law. If Wisconsin doesn't have a law against carrying an AR15 into a riot like a damned fool, you can't be convicted of it.

3. If you don't like that, change the law. You can't try someone for breaking a law that doesn't exist. This is what "rule of law" means. "Rule of law" is widely held to be a good thing.

4. To convict someone of a crime, you must convince twelve jurors *beyond a reasonable doubt* that he or she violated an *existing law.* This is a very high standard. It's high for a reason:

It is an ancient principle of our legal system, as expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in 1760 in his Commentaries on the Laws of England as Blackstone's ratio: It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

Benjamin Franklin agreed. So did John Adams:

5. Anyone who watched the trial knows that the defense succeeded in introducing reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse broke an *existing law.* That's all the defense needed to do. You cannot put a man on trial for his race, his political opinions, or his dumb backward baseball cap.

Or rather, you can--but that's called a show trial, and Americans are supposed to find that highly offensive. The only thing those jurors were allowed to decide was whether Rittenhouse violated an existing law in Wisconsin.

6. Wisconsin, for reasons that escape me, allows teenagers to wander around a riot with an AR15. Seems like bad law to me, I must say: If I lived in Wisconsin, I might petition my state legislators to change it.

However, I don't. And this is really for the people of Wisconsin to decide. If you don't live in Wisconsin, it's none of your business. Americans believe that the people who live under the laws should make them.

7. If you believe this verdict was unjust because you think that *if* the defendant had been black, he would have been convicted, or shot by the police, then the injustice lies in this *hypothetical* case, not the real one.

You can't convict Kyle Rittenhouse because you think *if* he had been black, he would be convicted. Since someone in these circumstances *shouldn't* be convicted, what you're arguing for is an injustice to right a hypothetical injustice--

which contravenes the common sense principle that two wrongs don't make a right, or to be more precise, a wrong and a hypothetical wrong don't make a right.

8. As for the legions of people who are gleeful that he has been acquitted because they think his actions were heroic? You're nuts. You don't want your communities to be policed by untrained, gonadal 17-year-olds. That's a recipe for disaster. As we have seen.

This was not a good outcome, it was a tragic one.
9. It must be said, however, that the people who were lawfully charged with maintaining order--and trained to do so--were MIA that night. They bear a great deal of moral responsibility for this debacle.

10. If the state fails to provide security, you get anarchy. Property gets destroyed. People get killed. Everyone seems to agree that this is a *bad* outcome.

11. Since we agree this is bad, perhaps we can agree that a world without the police might not be a utopia after all?

Every American should, actually, know all of this, and it's very disturbing how many of you don't. You're creeping me out. Haven't you ever watched a courtroom drama?
"Presumption of innocence?" "Burden of proof?""Reasonable doubt?" These terms mean nothing to you? Come on.

I have relieved myself of my lecture, and look forward to the stimulating exchange of ideas to follow.