Legal expert explains 'extremely problematic' rulings by Rittenhouse judge -- and reveals 'death knell' for the prosecution
A former prosecutor broke down some of the "extremely problematic" rulings by a Wisconsin judge that made convicting Kyle Rittenhouse difficult, and he also analyzed some key mistakes made by the prosecution.
Charles Coleman, a civil rights attorney and former Brooklyn prosecutor, told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Kenosha County prosecutors faced an exceedingly difficult case, simply based on the facts from a chaotic crime scene, and from an apparently hostile trial judge, Bruce Schroeder.
"There were different other rulings that this judge made throughout the trial that were extremely problematic," Coleman said. "Sometimes as a prosecutor you know that you are going to get dinged by the judge by something that you ask, but you feel the risk is greater than the reward because you can't unring the bell in the eyes and ears of the jury. Once the jury hears you ask a certain question, that's it. That's why the judge was so adamant about admonishing him, because he knew that there would be a motion, which there was, from the defense for a mistrial -- the judge does not want to see that -- [but] the degree, the level and the anger that the judge display towards the attorneys, I thought that was uncalled for."
Schroeder berated assistant district attorney Thomas Binger for trying to introduce evidence the judge had excluded, but Coleman said the prosecution had already made another major mistake during that line of questioning.
"The one big criticism that I have for the prosecutor in this case is that cross-examination was too long and it was boring and it had jurors sort of wiping their eyes and not paying attention," Coleman said. It needed to get to the point. I understood technically what the prosecutor was looking to do, and that was identify specific moments and they're going to try and go back to on summation and put together as a string of events to suggest that Kyle Rittenhouse could not have been acting sensibly in the manner in which he says he did regarding what he did, and his actions. However, the way they did that was so ineffective and completely lost the jury and ultimately it's going to hurt their case. That could be a death knell."
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