Olurin: Kyle Rittenhouse is Being Given Privileges that Most Defendants Don't Receive

Public Defender Olayemi Olurin discusses the homicide case of vigilante killer Kyle Rittenhouse

(Kyle Rittenhouse has admitted to traveling across state lines and procuring a rifle to patrol Wisconsin with other vigilantes and then shooting three men and killing two, but the judge in his upcoming trial has ruled that those Rittenhouse shot cannot be called “victims”.)

On the newest Deconstructing Consent podcast episode (embedded below), we heard from New York City Public Defender Olayemi Olurin regarding Kyle Rittenhouse’s pre-trial hearing rulings. One of the case judge’s pre-trial rulings given this week is that he will not allow the attorneys prosecuting Rittenhouse, who admittedly killed two and injured one with a rifle in Wisconsin after traveling there during riots from his home of Illinois but says he did so in self-defense, to refer to the people he shot, killed, and injured as “victims.”

Despite this cautious ruling on language, the judge also ruled that he very well might allow Rittenhouse’s defense team to refer to the people he shot and killed as arsonists, looters, and rioters if they provide sufficient evidence against the people Rittenhouse shot, even though they are not on trial and two of them are unable to testify at this trial because Ruttenhouse killed them.

Olurin explains to us that while it isn’t uncommon or improper for a defense team to ask for the judge to make a ruling like that on the use of the term “victim,” the fact that Rittenhouse was granted it is about as exceptional as the fact that he was allowed out on bail. “It’s a standard defense motion that they don’t refer to the people as victims because it’s prejudicial. That’s the standard motion that’s made. It’s almost always denied” Olurin says.

“People like me, we’re not pointing this out to say, ‘oh the defense attorney is wrong for asking for it’ or that we wouldn’t want that for our Black clients or the people that are typically prosecuted. What we’re pointing out is that it never happens for them.”

Olurin is also not convinced by public defender peers of hers who argue that they should not speak up and out regarding Rittenhouse’s pre-trial hearing rulings. On the contrary, Olurin says that this is a perfect opportunity to discuss what public defenders usually argue with vigor - that the U.S. criminal system is fundamentally racist and classist.

“If you typically say that the system is racist…[that] it maintains, protects, upholds White supremacy, this is an example of how the system does that,” she goes on.

“Pointing it out is not going to prevent the system from doing that and it’s also not going to prevent the system from giving that benefit to your clients because it never intended on giving that benefit to your client and that’s the point.”

That the rulings are odious and exceptional does not mean that they are shocking to Olurin, however. Bad rulings like this in favor of White, well-financed clients are not a bug of the U.S. criminal system, after all.

They are, in actuality, a key feature of it. “It does not shock me. That’s what I anticipated…that is how the system operates,” Olurin continues.

“That’s why I always say the criminal system is not insidious. It does not do anything in the shadows. It does it loud, for a court reporter to hear, for everyone that’s paying attention. It’s just that people aren’t hearing that. And so often when you do see things like this it’s treated like it’s a mistake, like it was a bad call, like it was a one-time thing because you’re not seeing the judge do this nonsense all day, every day, but everybody that’s there knows that this is how it goes down.”