During a chaotic night of protesting for Black rights, Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, traveled to Wisconsin armed to join a Kenosha militia group who said they wanted to protect businesses from protesters.
Rittenhouse’s lawyers will argue he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz.
Jury selection for Rittenhouse begins Monday. Bruce Schroder, the judge in the case, has spent months deciding how the jury will receive the case.
Most recently, Schroder told attorneys on both sides he disliked questionnaires in general because he was afraid most people wouldn’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.
Finding impartial jurors may be challenging considering all the national coverage on the case and prosecutors and the defense are shifting around the pool to find panelists who are open to their side.
Schroeder said each side will be allowed to strike seven people to reach a total of 20 jurors.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
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 will also be trying to influence potential jurors.
“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.”
