A Dozen Nameless Americans Prove the System Works

We have had the weekend to digest the trial in Kenosha. We have been deluged with media coverage, and those reports have been as divided as the country. The Twitter World has been on fire with celebrities, washed-up athletes, and marginal politicians using their limited number of characters to express their limited views. These people have shown they can reduce any situation to race even if all characters in the play are white. In a flock of white sheep, these folks will point out the White Supremacist. It is so shallow and so very predictable.

I want to focus on the twelve people who won the lottery when Kyle drew their number from the spinning wooden drum. We know nothing more about these folks except their juror number, and that is how it should be. These people fulfilled their civic responsibility and should not be the target of either side for their decision. They survived the onslaught of intimidation and stayed focused on their task.

This jury was photographed as they walked to and from the courthouse. Police stopped a person from MSNBC as he followed the jury transport bus. They did not stop him from tailing the bus, but he made the mistake of running a red light in his process. The Judge was right to ban MSNBC from future proceedings, but he was wrong not to sequester the jury and protect them from the outside influences. The jury prevailed all they were subjected to despite their exposure.

Kyle Rittenhouse will forever be guilty in the eyes of his accusers, but he is now joined with the jury. The jury is the new scapegoat and evidence to the left as the symbol of white supremacy. Kyle Rittenhouse escaped years of incarceration and will need to relocate because of the death threats from people who used to be his neighbors. The jury will go back to their lives now that their civic job is complete. It will be seen how these twelve are accepted back into society. This is why so many try to avoid the obligation of serving on a jury.

I did serve on a jury many years ago in Massachusetts. It was a month-long obligation in Supreme Court, and I was chosen to serve on three trials, the foreman on one. It was a humbling and eye-opening experience. The deliberations on each trial began earnestly as a discussion of the facts of the case. Still, they evolved into a negotiation to get all twelve members on the same side of the guilty/innocent line. I am comfortable that the right decision was made in the trials I sat on as I am with the Rittenhouse trial. Over time, there is much evidence to confirm the jury system as the “justest” form of justice.

Interestingly, the same people who pointed to the jury as the final word in the OJ trial cannot do the same in the Rittenhouse case. The jury and its verdict only work when it serves their cause, and their cause is always Race. It is startling to see the number of people who think the people shot by Rittenhouse were black. This is the perception the media gave them.

The jury system is a fundamental element of our republic and democracy. If any one of us were to find ourselves as a defendant in a trial, we would be comforted to look upon 12 competent members of our peers who take their responsibility seriously and will decide our future on the colorblind facts. The media and celebrities are losing this battle. They have put themselves in the spotlight, and they do not look good. Thank God the jury did not need the shine of the lights. They have the satisfaction of knowing they did their job and did it well. God bless them and keep them safe.