If the Rittenhouse trial is an example, I like the Wisconsin criminal courts

[joko104]

It was outrageous to have the jury deciding on possible charges against him that were never even stated - therefore never allowed to present any defense - until the trial was over. Like you receive a speeding ticket, and when that can't be proven after the trial the prosecutor asks that you be found guilty of not signally while changing lanes - now having no opportunity to even deny it.

 

[AmNat]

In my opinion this is the worst possible judge to have picked.

Yeah, it's hard to have a show trial with a judge who tries to preserve some semblance of a fair trial.

Richards did excellent at closing argument. But man did he just screw up the trial. He passed up on so many obvious objections, and he had the uncanny ability to screw up when the judge was agreeing with him. If he had come up with “Hocus pocus out of focus” in the evidentiary hearing that blurry picture that’s the sole saving grace to the prosecution would never been allowed. There was so many times during the trial I was literally screaming “objection” at my dashboard

Too many objections can annoy a jury; there are valid tactical reasons for passing on them.

I doubt any amount of argument would've swayed the judge's ruling on the video. By all appearances, he's a true believer in the justice system (the old constitutional system, not the new social justice system), so his bias is for letting the jury decide on questionable evidence. He frequently expresses the view that judges have imposed too many limitations on juries.

Fortunately Richards did well enough on Close that it made Fatlock angry and when Fatlock gets angry he gets really dumb. In his rage Lunchbox told the jury that “we all have gotten a beat down” and ripped one of his own witnesses as an “anti-prosecutor blogger who hates our office” he lied about his office’s prosecution of the Ziminskis which led to the judge having to tell the jury “what he said is not accurate” so the last impression the jury will get of Fatlock is that they’re liars.

It helps that both of the prosecutors talk like weasels.