A race hoaxster, a killer cop, the creepy accomplice of a wealthy pervert, and a teenager hailed as a folk hero by some and a vigilante by others were among 2021’s highest-profile defendants.
Some cases, such as the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, challenged the doctrine of self-defense, while others, including the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, held authorities accountable for their actions.
Then there was the curious case of Jussie Smollett, a Chicago actor whose tale of being racially profiled and assaulted by two men who tied a noose around his neck and threw an unknown substance at him captivated the nation.
Some of the country’s most noteworthy trials are currently sitting in the hands of a jury, and their outcomes, which could come any day, are likely to have a profound effect going forward.
Here is the Washington Examiner’s list of the top five criminal trials of 2021.
Kyle Rittenhouse
The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was a political lightning rod that challenged the doctrine of self-defense, the right to protest, and the gray areas in between.
Rittenhouse was charged in the fatal shootings of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. He also wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, after shooting him in the arm during a chaotic night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, sparked by a white police officer shooting a black man, Jacob Blake, in the back seven times at close range.
Hundreds of people showed up to the small town to protest peacefully, but the tenor devolved into multiple nights of lawlessness.
The charges Rittenhouse, a youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, faced ranged from intentional homicide to recklessly endangering safety, and, had he been found guilty, he could have landed behind bars for the rest of his life.
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Prosecutors described the then-17-year-old as an inexperienced “wannabe soldier” drawn to chaos, while defense attorneys countered that the onetime YMCA lifeguard feared for his life and was forced to kill or be killed.
Defense attorneys also told jurors Rittenhouse did not have to “take a beating” from an angry mob in order to claim self-defense and that his behavior was protected under state law.
“Every person who was shot was attacking Kyle,” defense attorney Mark Richards said, adding that Rittenhouse had been singled out and used as a scapegoat.
He also accused Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger of being a “liar” who had a “personal goal of putting my client’s head on his wall.”
Binger told jurors that “the only person who killed anyone was Rittenhouse” and threw doubt on the teenager’s claims he was there to “genuinely help.”
“[Rittenhouse] ran around with an AR-15 all night and lied about being an EMT,” Binger said.
When the “not guilty” verdicts were read, Rittenhouse fell to his knees and sobbed.
Since then, he has been a fixture on the conservative media scene and in December spoke at the Turning Point USA AmericaFest conference.
George Floyd Officer Trial
One of the year’s most anticipated trials was that of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin was found guilty of second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the May 5, 2020, death of George Floyd. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison on state charges. Floyd’s death sparked national outrage and led to coast-to-coast protests.
The father of five was killed after police officers responded to a report that he had used a counterfeit $20 bill. The 46-year-old was handcuffed face down on the street. He yelled, cried out for his mother, and repeatedly said he could not breathe as Chauvin pressed his knee to his neck for more than nine minutes. Bystanders who watched the incident unfold could be heard on cellphone video footage telling officers Floyd could not breathe.
Forty-five people testified at Chauvin’s three-week trial. The jury deliberated a little more than 10 hours before returning a “guilty” verdict. Chauvin did not testify in his own defense. His lawyers, in seeking a lighter sentence, claimed he was the “product of a broken system.”
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His conviction on state charges was rare. He is one of 11 nonfederal law enforcement officers who have been convicted of murder for on-duty killings since 2005.
The three other Minneapolis police officers who were at the scene and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter will be tried in March 2022. Thomas Lane, who held Floyd’s legs down, J. Alexander Kueng, who knelt on Floyd’s back, and Tou Thao, who tried to block bystanders, had previously been scheduled to go to trial in August, but the judge decided to delay their trial so that the federal case against them could go first.
All four former police officers were indicted in May on federal charges that they abused their position of power to violate Floyd’s civil rights.
The indictment accused the men of using the “color of the law” to deprive Floyd of his constitutional right to be “free from the use of unreasonable force.”
The men pleaded not guilty in September, but in a surprise move three months later, Chauvin changed his plea to guilty.
The former officer admitted for the first time that he knew what he did to Floyd was wrong and that he had a “callous and wanton disregard” for Floyd’s life, according to the plea agreement he signed. The document also said Chauvin “was aware that Mr. Floyd not only stopped resisting, but also stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped breathing, and lost consciousness and a pulse.”
Chauvin must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of 25.
In exchange for his plea, his lawyers asked that he be allowed to do his time in a federal penitentiary, even if it means he will have to serve a longer sentence.
Jussie Smollett
The trial of Jussie Smollett had more twists and turns than a made-for-TV movie.
The Empire star was found guilty in December on five charges of lying to authorities about his role in orchestrating a phony hate crime against himself three years ago.
Smollett was charged with six felony disorderly conduct charges for making what prosecutors said was a false police report, with one count for each time he gave a report to three different officers.
The Class 4 felony carries a prison sentence of up to three years, but Smollett will likely avoid jail time and get probation when he is sentenced. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Smollett’s case was unusual from start to finish, and he has maintained his innocence despite the “guilty” verdicts.
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Smollett told Chicago police officers that on Jan. 29, 2019, he had been targeted by two white men in ski masks who wrapped a rope around his neck and poured an “unknown substance” on him around 2 a.m. The assailants shouted, “This is MAGA country,” an apparent reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, before taking off, he said.
News of the attack spread quickly and put intense pressure on the Chicago Police Department to find the culprits. But as the investigation deepened, a different narrative started to emerge.
Smollett went from being a victim to a mastermind who staged the hoax to bolster his career, recruiting and paying Nigerian brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo $3,500 to carry out a phony attack, authorities said.
Smollett was initially charged with disorderly conduct, but Cook County prosecutors abruptly dropped the case a month later with little explanation.
After intense public outcry, a judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the matter.
The trial’s most compelling testimony came from Smollett himself, who told jurors “what happened to me happened.”
Smollett spent two days on the stand directly rebutting sworn statements by the Osundairo brothers that he paid them not only to carry out the attack but also to go for a “dry run” two days ahead of the incident.
The siblings claimed Smollett came up with the hate hoax because he was upset that his Empire bosses did not pay enough attention to the hate mail he received on the set. The MAGA slogan had been scrawled on a letter that included a drawing of a stick figure hanging by a noose.
Jeffrey Epstein Maxwell Trial
The jury is still out in the criminal sex trafficking case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite accused of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and his network of high-profile friends.
Prosecutors described the 59-year-old as a “grown woman who preyed on vulnerable kids,” was “dangerous,” and knew right from wrong.
The defense claimed she was a victim and a pawn in Epstein’s seedy sexual exploits and is being used as a scapegoat for Epstein’s sexual misconduct.
Maxwell, the daughter of the late British media mogul Robert Maxwell, faces six counts of trafficking-related charges, including enticing minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts. She is also accused of conspiracy, including using one of Epstein’s alleged victims to recruit other girls to participate in “paid sex acts with Epstein.” She’s also charged with perjury for allegedly lying under oath during depositions in a civil lawsuit against her.
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Maxwell has denied the accusations, but if convicted, she could spend seven decades behind bars.
There had been some courtroom buzz that she would take the stand, but Maxwell told Judge Alison Nathan on Dec. 17 that “the government has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and so there is no need for me to testify.”
The defense wrapped up its case in two days. They had initially indicated they may call up to 35 witnesses but in the end only called nine, including a memory expert and Dr. Eva Andersson-Dubin, a former Miss Sweden and onetime girlfriend of Epstein. Andersson-Dubin testified she never saw Epstein or Maxwell behave inappropriately with young girls and also said she had no problem trusting the couple with her own children.
Prosecutors rested their case after two weeks and 24 witnesses. They called four of Epstein’s accusers to the stand: Jane, Kate, Carolyn, and Annie Farmer.
Farmer is the only alleged victim who testified under her own name.
Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of Theranos, speaks at an event in San Francisco.Elizabeth Holmes, the onetime darling of Silicon Valley, has been accused of lying to investors and patients about her failed blood testing startup and could face 20 years in prison if she is convicted on fraud charges.
Her San Jose, California, trial lasted four months, and the jury, made up of eight men and four women, is currently deliberating.
Jurors must reach a unanimous decision, and failure to do so could trigger a mistrial.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers painted starkly different portraits of the once-lionized, young entrepreneur who promised innovative blood testing technology only to be accused of fabricating results and duping investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors called Holmes a desperate con artist who brazenly lied to make money. The defense countered by saying she was a misunderstood woman under the thumb of a controlling co-owner and ex-boyfriend who manipulated her at every turn.
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Her trial centered on allegations Holmes conned people into believing that Theranos invented a quicker, safer, and cheaper way to test blood. Instead of using needles to draw multiple vials of blood from a vein, Holmes falsely claimed Theranos had the technology to scan for hundreds of diseases and other health problems with just a few drops of blood taken from a finger prick.
The concept, which Holmes said came from her own fear of needles, was so enticing that Theranos raised more than $900 million and inked lucrative deals with Walgreens, Safeway, and drugmaker Pfizer.
Holmes was heralded as a genius and the next Steve Jobs. In 2015, Forbes had named her the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in America based on a $9 billion valuation of Theranos.
Holmes, known for her no-nonsense attitude, spent seven days testifying in her own defense.
At times, her voice cracked and she broke down in tears, blaming her former boyfriend Ramesh Balwani for the company’s downfall.
She told jurors Balwani led her down a path of deceit and that she, too, had been a victim. She also told jurors that Balwani controlled nearly every aspect of her life, including her diet and friendships.
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The Justice Department charged the onetime couple with 11 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Both have pleaded not guilty.
