Jurors begin deliberating in homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse

Twelve jurors began deliberating Tuesday in Kyle Rittenhouse’s homicide trial in Kenosha, Wis., tasked with deciding the 18-year-old’s fate in the polarizing case.

Rittenhouse is charged with five counts, including homicide and attempted homicide, after shooting three people in August 2020 amid the unrest that gripped Kenosha following a police shooting. He fatally shot 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and 26-year-old Anthony Huber. He also injured Gaige Grosskreutz, who was 26 at the time.

Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty and said he acted in self-defense after being attacked by people who tried to take his gun. Prosecutors say Rittenhouse was a violent aggressor who acted recklessly.

• The trial has featured two weeks of at times dramatic testimony, as well as extensive footage of the shootings. Rittenhouse took the stand last week and tearfully insisted that he had fired only to defend himself.
• The prosecution has argued that Rittenhouse committed murder, pointing to the fact that while there was unrest on the streets of Kenosha that night, “the only person that killed anyone was the defendant.”
• The trial has been marked by combative exchanges between the judge, Bruce Schroeder, and the lead prosecutor, Thomas Binger. Many of the judge’s rulings have appeared to favor the defense.

11:20 AM: Jurors are selected for Rittenhouse deliberations

Court proceedings started Tuesday with the selection of 12 jurors to deliberate on the Rittenhouse charges, from the pool of 18.

A bailiff carried a brown metal tumbler to the defense table where Rittenhouse reached in and picked out six names, selecting the people who would serve as alternates in his trial. The remaining 12 people — six men and six women — were sent by Schroeder to begin their deliberations.

Protesters were heard though the windows throughout.

By: Mark Guarino

10:31 AM: Rittenhouse’s far-right supporters used shared enemies to raise millions of dollars

Kyle Rittenhouse has been a folk hero for the political far right since he was identified in August 2020 as the teenager who killed two people and wounded a third in the Kenosha unrest. His supporters have raised nearly $3 million on his behalf and routinely flood social media to make their case for the 18-year-old’s innocence.

Actor and conservative activist Ricky Schroeder contributed to Rittenhouse’s $2 million bail last year. And Rittenhouse’s legal team had raised more than $650,000 for his defense as of last month through the “Free Kyle USA” website, with messaging that reflects themes typically found in conservative media.

The site names “Big Tech, a corrupt media, and dishonest politicians and prosecutors” as adversaries who are “trying to censor, silence and ruin the life of Kyle Rittenhouse.” A slogan, “Free Kyle,” has appeared on clothing and other merchandise sold on the site.

Many of the prominent conservative voices that lambasted the Black Lives Matter protesters — Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Jesse Kelly and others — vigorously defended Rittenhouse on their platforms in the aftermath of the shooting. Malkin, a Newsmax TV host, referred her followers to Rittenhouse’s former #FightBack fundraising site, tweeting that “Kyle & his family face serious and ongoing security threats by Antifa/BLM thugs who are supported by Dems & elites in power.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) shared a link to the “Free Kyle USA” donation site on Twitter last month in a post calling Rittenhouse a hero at a time when “Democrats seeded chaos and stoked violence.”

In the courtroom, Rittenhouse’s legal team echoed the language used by his defenders in the media. The shooting victims, among those who filled the city’s streets that night, were characterized in hearings as antifa, the anti-fascist protest movement that Donald Trump often denounced while in office. “

The high-profile supporters, the nearly $3 million raised and the fervent public support from the right make Rittenhouse “an unusual criminal defendant,” said Keith Findley, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“This is so far from the norm. Most criminal defendants are at a serious disadvantage to the state in terms of resources and in all sorts of respects,” he said. “So in many ways, that script is flipped in this case.”

By: Mark Guarino

7:01 AM: A ‘nothingburger’: Trial has been largely devoid of demonstrators

At the Kenosha County Courthouse where Rittenhouse has been on trial for 11 days, demonstrators have shown up largely in trickles — one here, two or three there.

Jacob Blake’s uncle has shown up each morning calling for justice for his nephew, the Black man whose shooting by a police officer sparked the Kenosha unrest. With temperatures just above freezing Monday, one demonstrator clutched a poster declaring, “Self-defense is not a crime,” and another waved a “Black Lives Matter” flag. A handful showed up in the afternoon, just loud enough for their chants to be heard in the courtroom.

“It’s a nothingburger out here,” said Kevin Mathewson, a Kenosha resident who called for armed people to respond to the unrest in Kenosha last year. “I thought there would be lines to get there early, but there’s nothing of the sort.”

Mathewson attributed the relative quiet at the courthouse to the bitter wind off Lake Michigan and the ability to stream the trial from the comfort of home.

But Ziv Cohen, a criminal psychiatrist in New York, said there could be a larger reason that far-right activists, in particular, have not shown up in droves. He pointed to fallout from the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which has led to criminal charges for hundreds of alleged participants.

“The type of folks who came out on Jan. 6 have been sobered by the repercussions, and we’ve seen them become more cautious,” Cohen said. Extremist views have moved from the street and onto encrypted online platforms such as Telegram, which Cohen characterizes as a tempest in waiting.

The verdict could be a re-energizing moment, said Alan Lipman, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at George Washington University Hospital and director of the Center for the Study of Violence in Washington. Group violence, he said, requires “a sufficient motivator.”

“You have to reach a certain level of personal belief in the need for action, whether that is entirely misplaced or whether there is some factual basis for it,” he said. “Once you reach a verdict, there is a possibility that will reach a threshold for those who decide to come out and act.”

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) has put roughly 500 National Guard troops on standby as the verdict approaches.

By: Mark Guarino

6:23 AM: How Americans’ views of self-defense have changed

Kyle Rittenhouse has become a Rorschach test for the United States’ culture wars, and at the center of the competing characterizations is his gun.

According to Rittenhouse’s handlers, the teen is “an honorable person who was forced to shoot people in a matter of self-defense,” said branding expert Tim Calkins, who teaches marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Chicago. “As a result, he represents all the good things about our country, such as taking responsibility and standing up for what is right.”

On the other hand, Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger has depicted Rittenhouse as a violent vigilante who was armed with an AR-15-style rifle because he “was hunting humans, not deer.”

As jury deliberation begins in Rittenhouse’s case, the 12 people who are determining his fate probably will be more accustomed to the idea of legal self-defense than jurors in the past, said Gabriel Chin, a criminal law expert at the University of California at Davis. Courts, policymakers and advocacy organizations such as the National Rifle Association have made self-defense arguments more palatable in recent years.

“There’s a much wider window for use of deadly force than there used to be,” Chin said. The actions of armed vigilantes can be justified if there is reasonable belief they will be subject to deadly force, he said.

“You can’t take the law into your own hands and appoint yourself the police officer of your neighborhood, but you can say ‘I’ll strap on a gun and if the lawful use of force arises, I’m going to use it.’” Chin said. “Forty years ago, the courts might have deprived you of your right to use force as self-defense, but now much less so.”

If Rittenhouse is acquitted, it will not set a legal precedent for loosening self-defense laws further, he added, because context is critical in establishing reasonable doubt.

“For those who do believe Kyle Rittenhouse had a great idea, if they emulate him, they could wind up getting convicted even if [he] doesn’t,” Chin said. “It would be extremely risky for people to say this is a good path to follow.”

Regardless of the verdict, people will interpret it in divergent ways, predicted Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who now teaches law at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

“Was he a young kid with a serious weapon taking out people or, alternatively, with the rioting and looting on the other side, was he helping save the community?” she said. “Clearly people are going to see things in this case that are political versus factual or legal because our country is so divided politically and somehow this case has lined up on that same partisan path.”

—

Stay tuned for more details