Pretrial rulings strengthen his self-defense claims.
Chicago Tribune (“ Men shot by Rittenhouse can be described as ‘rioters’ and ‘looters’ but not ‘victims,’ judge rules ahead of trial “): Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyers can refer to the men he shot as “rioters” and “looters,” but prosecutors still may not call them “victims” at any time during the teen’s upcoming murder trial, a judge ruled Monday. Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder cautioned the defense team against using pejorative terms during opening statements, but he said they could use them in their closing arguments if the evidence suggested the men engaged in criminal acts. “He can demonize them if he wants, if he thinks it will win points with the jury,” Schroeder said. Rittenhouse has pleaded not guilty to the charges and says he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz in August 2020. Then 17 and living in Antioch, Rittenhouse fired the shots while patrolling downtown Kenosha with an AR-15-style rifle amid the turmoil surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer. Despite not being old enough to openly carry a gun, Rittenhouse volunteered as an armed security guard after businesses had been burned and vandalized during demonstrations held the previous night. Schroeder earlier had ruled the three men cannot be referred to as “victims” during the trial because it would be prejudicial to Rittenhouse. Such rulings are not uncommon in self-defense cases where there is a dispute over who bears responsibility. In allowing the defense to describe the people Rittenhouse shot in pejorative terms, the judge stressed that he had not changed his mind about calling them victims. “The word victim is a loaded, loaded word,” Schroeder said. The ruling — among the last issued by Schroeder before jury selection begins Nov.1 — clearly frustrated prosecutors, who suggested the judge was creating a double standard by allowing Rosenbaum and Huber to be disparaged when they could not defend themselves. “The terms that I’m identifying here such as rioter, looter and arsonist are as loaded, if not more loaded, than the term victim,” Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger said. This seems at first blush to be a stacking of the deck, allowing the defense to use inflammatory, prejudicial language while the prosecution has to avoid perfectly natural descriptions of people shot by a provocateur illegally brandishing an assault rifle. Then again, given that the state seeks to take away Rittenhouse’s liberty, it’s not unreasonable that they have to play by more restrictive rules. Further, given that there is no dispute over whether Rittenhouse killed the men but rather whether he was justified by the self-defense doctrine, there’s some logic to allowing his attorneys greater latitude. The defense intends to argue that Rosenbaum, in particular, posed a danger that night as he threatened to kill people and engaged in arson. None of the acts, however, occurred in the moments immediately preceding the shooting. “The behavior of many people there was lawless,” defense attorney Mark Richards said. “Mr. Rosenbaum was at the top of that list.” Schroeder indicated he would allow evidence of bad behavior that night by the men Rittenhouse shot because it could speak to how dangerous they would have seemed to the teen. Prosecutors failed to convince the judge that the defense wanted to sully Rosenbaum’s reputation so the jury could more easily justify the shooting. “This is an attempt to tell the jury that Mr. Rosenbaum was a bad guy who deserved to die,” Binger said. “That’s really what’s going on here, your honor.” Oftentimes, “rioter” and “looter” have racial connotations but that’s not the case here. While Rosenbaum and Huber were participating in Black Lives Matter protests, they were White.
