'Major achievements and historic experiences'

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'Major achievements and historic experiences'

November 12, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

Two simultaneous murder trials are exposing the highly charged issues of race, justice, politics and gun access, which constantly simmer in US society. In Wisconsin, 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is charged with killing two people and wounding another during a protest last year over the police killing of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. In Georgia, three White men are on trial over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, while he was out for a jog in February 2020. The accused have invoked self-defense in both cases, and their trials are reviving debate over how the US justice system handles cases with racial overtones and whether it can ensure a fair jury selection.

Wisconsin: The Rittenhouse defense rests

The Rittenhouse case is examining events in the city of Kenosha in summer 2020, when the then 17-year-old and several others entered the tense city in August amid social unrest. Rittenhouse was armed with an assault rifle, according to the legal complaint laying out charges, and fatally shot two men: Anthony Huber, 26 and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36. A third, Gaige Grosskreutz, who is now 27, was wounded.

Rittenhouse, a fan of Donald Trump who supported the pro-police Blue Lives Matter movement, said he traveled to Kenosha to protect property, and broke down in tears on Wednesday when he testified that he believed he was being ambushed by a group and used lethal force for self-defense.

His case tests the distinction between self-defense and vigilantism, and raises questions about why a teenager ended up roaming the streets with a deadly weapon during social upheaval hyped by conservative media -- sections of which are giving Rittenhouse strong support in their coverage. But when the jury deliberates, the central question of the case will be whether Rittenhouse's actions were reasonable.

The televised trial has seen some extraordinary theater in the courtroom, with the judge at points yelling at the prosecutor over his line of questioning. The case is likely to go to the jury in the next few days and the verdict, whichever way it goes, will surely cause even more controversy.

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Georgia: A weeks-long selection process

In the trial in Georgia, Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and their neighbor William Bryan, are pleading not guilty to charges of malice and felony murder, after chasing down and shooting Ahmaud Arbery. The three men -- who are White -- were not arrested over the killing until video of the incident was made public in early May and prompted protests around the country.

The McMichaels say they suspected Arbery of burglary at a construction site, and were trying to enact a lawful citizen's arrest; they also argue that Travis McMichael shot the jogger in self-defense. On Monday, the prosecution played a video of the chase and Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, saw it for the first time. She told CNN that she hoped the video would help convince the jury that her son had done nothing wrong before he was killed. "He was simply out for a jog, he did stop by that unoccupied home but again, Ahmaud didn't commit a crime and Ahmaud was chased and eventually killed."

This trial opened amid controversy over a jury that includes only one Black juror, stirring memories of the South's history of racial exclusion in jury selection. Defense attorneys used several reasons to strike Black jurors, including their support of the Black Lives Matter movement and if they believed the criminal justice system treated Black Americans differently than White Americans. Judge Timothy Walmsley said the defense appeared to be discriminatory in selecting the jury, but allowed the case to go forward anyway, ruling that there were valid reasons for the jurors' dismissals.

Juries in the US are meant to represent a cross-section of the local community, but critics point out the racial make-up of this jury is far from representative of the city of Glynn County, where the trial is taking place and where Black residents make up over a quarter of the population.

'Major achievements and historic experiences'

Ahead of next Monday's virtual summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday adopted a landmark resolution on the party's "major achievements and historic experiences," according to state news agency Xinhua. This kind of resolution, expected to reinforce Xi's hold on power, has been issued only twice before – cementing the supremacy of former leaders Mao Zedong in 1945 and Deng Xiaoping in 1981.