Jury seated for Kenosha trial

A jury was selected for the homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in a single day Monday, despite the turbulent political passions unleashed when he shot three people who were out on the streets of Kenosha during a protest against racial injustice.

Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday morning, with the trial expected to last two weeks.

The jury must decide whether Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, as his lawyers claim, or was engaged in vigilantism when he opened fire with an Ar-15style semiautomatic rifle in August 2020, killing two men and wounding a third.

In an all-day session that ran well past dark, 20 people — 12 jurors and eight alternates — were selected. The court did not immediately disclose which ones will actually serve as the jury. The 20 consist of 11 women and nine men.

Jurors were not asked to identify their race during the selection process, and the court did not immediately provide a racial breakdown of the group.

Rittenhouse was 17 when he traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois, just across the Wisconsin state line, during unrest that broke out in August 2020 after a white Kenosha police officer shot and wounded Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back. Rittenhouse said he went there to protect property after two previous nights marked by arson, gunfire and the ransacking of businesses.

Rittenhouse, now 18, faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide, the most serious charge against him.

As jury selection got under way, Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder stressed repeatedly that jurors must decide the case on what they hear in the courtroom, and cautioned: “This is not a political trial.”

The judge said Rittenhouse’s constitutional right to a fair trial, not the Second Amendment right to bear arms, will come into play, and “I don’t want it to get sidetracked into other issues.”