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Originally Posted by Macman
It does look a little too cozy, what do you think the jurors may be getting from this. It is bad optics for someone that's on trial for murder.
I don't think Rittenhouse will be doing much time if any, even if he does get convicted on one or some charge there will most likely be an appeal.
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That camera angle is definitely making the judge and Rittenhouse look closer together than they actually are.
At the end of the day, this is a jury trial, so it's up to the jury to make the decision. The judge is going to have some influence, via his instructions. However, you have to remember that this jury is made up of 18 local people, with 12 of them being randomly drawn to make the final decision. I guarantee, that within that pool, there are a considerable amount of gun owners, who will see any conviction of Rittenhouse as de facto gun control. On top of that multiple jurors are likely to know who Rosenbaum is and what he did. Kenosha is a small town. The judge ruled out any evidence of Rosenbaum's criminal history going before the jury, but I just don't see how not a single member of that jury is going to find out.
So the prosecution basically has the task of convincing a group of locals, many of whom are likely to own arsenals themselves, that Rittenhouse, the police cadet, should go to jail for shooting a pedophile who was engaged in burning property. I don't agree with that perspective, but there's likely to be several jury members who have it.
It sounds like the case will hinge a lot on whether the prosecution is able to show that Rittenhouse was provoking Rosenbaum. This isn't likely to be a jury that sees wandering around with an assault rifle as provocation.