KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse was set to open Monday with the challenging task of seating jurors who haven’t already made up their minds about the young aspiring police officer who shot two people to death and wounded a third during a violent night of anti-racism protests last year.
Rittenhouse was 17 when he made the short trip from his home in Illinois, just across the Wisconsin state line, during protests that broke out in August 2020 after a white Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man. Rittenhouse, now 18, faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide, one of several charges against him.
Judge Bruce Schroeder, who has experience presiding over high-profile trials, told attorneys he thinks picking the jury from 150 prospective jurors can be accomplished in a day. The trial is expected to last two to three weeks.
Jury selection got off to a slow start Monday, as the judge played a mock game of “Jeopardy!” with jurors who were in the courtroom. This prompted many negative comments on a Facebook livestream of the trial, with many saying it was inappropriate, and one commenter writing: “This judge seems like he has lost touch with reality.”
As he asked the jury trivia questions on a range of topics, Schroeder also offered his own commentary on some of the questions. When the answer to one was the movie “Psycho,” Schroeder, 75, quipped: “Heard of it.”
The case has been polarizing, with Rittenhouse painted by his backers as a patriot exercising self-defense and Second Amendment gun rights. Others see him as a vigilante and police wannabe who never should have been armed in Kenosha in the first place. Rittenhouse is white, as were those he shot, but many are watching his trial as the latest referendum on race and the American legal system.
Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle after Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse across a parking lot and threw a plastic bag at him shortly before midnight on Aug. 25. Moments later, as Rittenhouse was running down a street, he shot and killed Anthony Huber, 26, a protester from Silver Lake, Wisconsin, and shot and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, a protester from West Allis, Wisconsin.
Bystander video captured Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse but not the actual shooting. Video showed Huber swinging a skateboard at Rittenhouse before he was shot. Grosskreutz had a gun in his hand as he stepped toward Rittenhouse and was shot.
William Hanrahan, who spent 19 years as a prosecutor and was a Wisconsin circuit judge for 13, said the attorneys on the case will be trying to influence potential jurors during the selection process.
“What each side is going to do is attempt to prejudice the jury right out of the chute, to strategically plant seeds to subtly set forth their positions,” Hanrahan said. “For a seasoned judge, it’s going to be a challenge here because some lawyers are really good and able to slowly introduce their case in the form of questions to the potential jurors.”
Attorneys for both sides urged the judge to send questionnaires to the people summoned as potential jurors to detect bias and speed the process. Schroeder, the longest-serving circuit court judge in Wisconsin, denied the request.
The judge said he disliked questionnaires in general because he was afraid most people won’t fill them out or that it would tip them off that they may be on the Rittenhouse case, increasing the chances they would discuss it with friends and family.
Rittenhouse faces two homicide counts, one of attempted homicide and two of recklessly endangering safety for firing his weapon near others. He is also charged with possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18.
