Two court cases captured the attention of Americans on all
sides of the political spectrum this month, the trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and
of Travis and Greg McMichael and William Bryan. Two different verdicts that I
think illustrate that in some cases, the American system of justice still
works.
Many of those whose political inclinations lean left were
outraged by the verdict in the Rittenhouse case. They have accused the Judge,
the jury, the lawyers, and everyone but the Bailiff in this case of being biased
and racist, despite the fact that the victims in this case were white. The
reality is, that while no one can say to what extent certain individuals are
racist, racism was not the determining factor in this case.
Our judicial system is designed to give even the most loathsome
individuals the same protection as those we love. This is what happened in the
Rittenhouse case. Those on the left find Rittenouse to be a villain as much as
those on the right find him to be a hero, but justice does not care either way.
Justice is blind. We don’t like the idea that a kid can walk the streets with
an assault rifle whenever he wants (the fact that he was underage is a separate
issue. If he were 18 we would feel the same way). We don’t like the idea that
if a person feels threatened in the street, they can shoot the person they feel
threatened by. We especially don’t like the understanding that if that kid were
black, he would likely be gunned down himself or arrested by the cops before he
ever got a chance to defend himself. But none of these things can be factors in
court if someone is to have a fair trial, and that’s what Kyle Rittenhouse got.
He got a presumption of innocence, and the prosecutor failed to prove that his
actions were not self-defense beyond the high standard of reasonable doubt. You don’t have to like it, but you should
appreciate it. Some will find that suggestion offensive because the law is not
applied fairly to all people. I’ll get to that.
Look, in contrast, at the McMichaels/Bryan case. These men
subjected Ahmaud Arbery to what was essentially a 21st century
lynching. They hunted this poor man down like a dog. Greg McMichael’s defense
was essentially “he looked like a dirty, sketchy, black kid.” These men were
found guilty of multiple counts of murder, not because the judge, or the jury,
or the lawyers were anti-white racists. 11 out of the 12 jurors were white. They
were found guilty because the same system that applied to Kyle Rittenhouse was
applied to them, and under that standard, the prosecution showed that these men
murdered Ahmaud Arbery. The system worked.
Again, a lot of the outrage over Kyle Rittenhouse is the
idea that he got off because he was white. There’s no question that white
people enjoy privilege in our criminal justice system. But look at the two
cases. The man whose victims were white was acquitted, and those whose victim
was black were convicted. Doesn’t quite fit the narrative.
The outrage is justified. We’ve heard a lot of talk about
Critical Race Theory over the last few months, and ironically, the right has
been looking for it in the wrong place. It has been fully on display in our courts. There’s
not an aware human being in this country that doesn’t know that if a black kid
had crossed state lines and attended a BLM protest with an AR-15, his fate
would have been very different. We all have a sense that even if he made it to
court, a conviction would have been almost certain. It’s also clear that it
took way too long to bring the McMichaels’ to justice. But these are problems with
the legislature, and a legal system that is rooted in racism, not with the way
justice was applied in these two cases.
The law that allowed the McMichaels to feel justified in
hunting down Ahmaud Arbery, the Citizens Arrest law, previously in effect for
over 150 years, has been repealed. This is what we should focus on. Here is a law
that illustrates critical race theory. No black man in Georgia could ever in
history have gotten away with approaching a white man with a gun with the
intent of making an arrest. No black man should ever have to accept a non-law
enforcement white man approaching him with a gun with the assumption that a
legal arrest is about to take place. It was a law rooted in systemic racism and
as a result of this case, it was repealed. That is the kind of justice we
should be focused on. One may have cause to hope that laws against open carry
of assault rifles in Wisconsin and in particular laws against underage carry will be strengthened in the wake of the Rittenhouse trial. It’s an iffy
proposition. The NRA is strong, but we can hope. However, as disappointed as I
am that Kyle Rittenhouse walks free today, and even worse, as some kind of
right wing icon, I remain steadfast in my belief that the justice system worked
in both of these cases, and that, we as a society must work to fix the system’s
racial inequities, not throw it away when we don’t get the results we want.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards
justice.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
