Daylong deliberations but no verdict
The jury at Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial deliberated a full day on Tuesday without reaching a verdict over whether he was the instigator in a night of bloodshed in Kenosha or a concerned citizen who came under attack while trying to protect property.
The case went to the anonymous jury after the judge, in an unusual move, allowed Rittenhouse himself to play a minor role in the selection of the final panel of 12 people whose job was to decide his fate.
Rittenhouse reached into a raffle drum and drew numbered slips that determined which of the 18 jurors who sat through the case would deliberate and which ones would be dismissed as alternates.
That task is usually performed by a court clerk, not the defendant. Judge Bruce Schroeder said later in the day that he has been having defendants do it for “I’m going to say 20 years, at least.”
The jury will return Wednesday morning to continue its work.
Rittenhouse, 18, faces life in prison if convicted as charged for using an Arstyle semi-automatic rifle to kill two men and wound a third during a night of protests against racial injustice in Kenosha in the summer of 2020. The former police youth cadet is white, as were those he shot.
Rittenhouse testified he acted in self-defense, while prosecutors argued he provoked the violence. The case has become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over guns, racialjustice protests, vigilantism and law and order.
As the jury deliberated, dozens of protesters — some for Rittenhouse, some against — stood outside the courthouse.
Some talked quietly with those on the other side, while others shouted insults. One woman could be heard repeatedly calling some Rittenhouse supporters “white supremacists.”