If Kyle Rittenhouse is found guilty of murder and other charges in connection with the shooting deaths of two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer, his attorneys will have several issues they can use to appeal, Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax Tuesday.
"I will never predict how a jury will come out because I don't know the composition of the jury," said Dershowitz, who has called for an acquittal throughout the dramatic trial, during an appearance on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "But I can tell you how it should come out. This should be an acquittal."
But, Dershowitz said, "I'm an appellate lawyer, so I specialize in wrong verdicts, and if this verdict comes out guilty, I think the appellate issues would be quite substantial."
Dershowitz said that one need not be a Second Amendment advocate to understand that Rittenhouse had the right to defend himself by using a gun if someone was using their fists to attack him.
"Remember the [George] Zimmerman case, where the young Black man [Trayvon Martin] was banging his head against the pavement, causing him possible serious injury and death, and he was shot?" asked Dershowitz. "The jury found self-defense. I'm an old man. If somebody comes up to me, I don't have a gun. But if somebody would have come up to me and start to beat me up, and I had a gun, I would have a perfect right to use that."
Further, lead prosecutor Thomas Binger was wrong in his final arguments to say that Rittenhouse lost his right to self-defense when he brought his weapon to the Kenosha protests, said Dershowitz.
"That's just not a correct view of the law," said Dershowitz. "My surprise is that the defense didn't object to that. I think they failed to object to a number of things that occurred during the closing arguments."
Dershowitz said Binger is acting out of "desperation" to prove his case.
"He's trying to put Rittenhouse on trial for coming to the riot," said Dershowitz. "The defense is trying to defend just over the two or three minutes surrounding the actual shooting, and the judge's instruction wasn't as clear as it could be on whether this is a trial of Rittenhouse for coming there; whether he, in some respects may have forfeited his rights; or whether he, like anybody else, had the right to choose his own life over those of assailants who threatened them."