Defense Attorney Mark Richards said the only thing that mattered was whether Rittenhouse was found not guilty or not.
Soon after a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges against him, defense attorney Mark Richards took a swipe at his predecessors, telling reporters that their tactics – leaning into Rittenhouse’s portrayal as a rallying point for the right to carry weapons and defend oneself – were not his. “I was hired by the two first lawyers. I’m not going to use their names,” Richards said Friday. “They wanted to use Kyle for a cause and something that I think was inappropriate – and I don’t represent causes. I represent clients.” Richards, beaming as he talked to reporters outside his Racine law office after the acquittal, said that to him, the only thing that mattered was “whether he was found not guilty or not.” It seemed an apt comment from Richards. Along with co-counsel Corey Chirafisi, he spent the months leading up to the case in virtual silence – “I don’t do interviews,” he said brusquely to one emailed request in December – and sought at trial to minimize the polarizing questions about Second Amendment rights. Hours after the verdict, Fox News touted an exclusive interview and upcoming documentary on Rittenhouse, with footage that made it clear a crew had been embedded with him during the trial. Richards told The Associated Press on Saturday that he opposed the crew as inappropriate, but that it was arranged by those raising money for Rittenhouse. “It was not approved by me, but I’m not always in control,” he said, adding that he had to toss the crew out of the room on several occasions: “I think it detracted from what we were trying to do, and that was obviously to get Kyle found not guilty.” Regardless of what was happening behind the scenes, the strategy from Richards and Chirafisi in court was clear: get the jury to regard Rittenhouse as a scared teenager who shot to save his life. They repeatedly focused on the two minutes,55 seconds in which the shootings unfolded – the critical moments in which Rittenhouse, then 17, said he felt a threat and pulled the trigger. “These guys have a client who is a human being … that’s what they’re rightly focused on,” said Dean Strang, a defense attorney and distinguished professor in residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Strang, who spoke to the AP before Friday’s verdict and who wasn’t connected to the case, said Richards and Chirafisi see Rittenhouse “as an 18-year-old kid who landed in a whole lot of trouble, more than he could handle.” In the days after the shootings, Rittenhouse – who brought an AR-style rifle to a protest, saying he was protecting a stranger’s property – was initially represented by attorneys John Pierce and Lin Wood, who painted Rittenhouse as a defender of liberty and a patriot who was exercising his right to bear arms.
