The Washington Post - USA (2021-11-11)

(Antfer) #1

A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 , 2021


BY SCOTT WILSON

Regardless of how he is viewed,
Judge Bruce E. Schroeder is indis-
putably a man with fixed rules for
how trials in his Kenosha County
courtroom will be run. Some are
basic, some unorthodox, and all
reflect the experience of a jurist
who believes trials can be too easi-
ly manipulated, particularly by
the prosecution.
“For a jury trial, if you get him,
you are happy as a defense attor-
ney,” said Michael Cicchini, a crim-
inal defense lawyer in Kenosha,
Wis., who has appeared before
Schroeder numerous times, in-
cluding earlier this year. In that
case, he won an acquittal for his
client, who was charged with bat-
tery.
Schroeder’s reputation has
some in Kenosha worried. The 75-
year-old judge is running the trial
of Kyle Rittenhouse, now in its
second week, which will deter-
mine if the 18-year-old who
brought his assault rifle to town in
August 2020 is guilty of homicide.
Rittenhouse fatally shot two peo-
ple and badly wounded a third
during unrest that followed a po-
lice shooting.
The defense has already logged
some wins in Schroeder’s court-
room. Gaige Grosskreutz, the man
who survived Rittenhouse’s gun-
fire, took the witness stand for the
prosecution, but acknowledged
that he was pointing his gun at
Rittenhouse when the teenager
fired at him — a boost for Ritten-
house’s self-defense claim.
Then, as the prosecution rested
its case on Tuesday, Schroeder dis-
missed a charge for his alleged
failure to comply with curfew. The
judge said he agreed with defense
attorneys that the prosecution
had not entered sufficient evi-
dence to prove that a curfew was
in effect the night Rittenhouse
killed the two men.
And on Wednesday, Schroeder
engaged in several sharp exchang-
es with Assistant District Attorney
Thomas Binger as he questioned
Rittenhouse, admonishing the
prosecutor: “Don’t get brazen
with me!”
Six counts remain against Rit-
tenhouse, including first-degree


reckless homicide, first-degree in-
tentional homicide and attempted
first-degree intentional homicide.
If convicted, he faces life in prison.
T he case draws together some
of the most volatile elements of
America’s examination of race and
criminal justice: White vigilan-
tism, gun control and racial jus-
tice. In the home stretch of a near-
ly four-decade career on the
bench, Schroeder’s sometimes un-
orthodox rules are now receiving
nationwide scrutiny.
“It seems like he’s aiming to let
this man out of this courthouse
scot-free and we’re not going to let
that happen,” said Justin Blake,
whose nephew Jacob Blake was
shot by a police officer last year,
triggering the nights of unrest that
drew Rittenhouse to Kenosha. “If
it happens, we’re not going to be
quiet about it.”

A matter of language
Justin Blake singled out one of
Schroeder’s rulings that has gen-
erated anger and confusion in
many quarters, even though it
long has been one of the judge’s
most steadfast rules: As the trial
began last week, Schroeder for-
bade the prosecution from calling
the three men Rittenhouse shot
“victims,” which the judge has
long called a “loaded term.” He
prefers “decedents” or “complain-
ing witnesses.”
“That’s been a rule in his court-
room since Day One,” said Cicchi-
ni, who has been practicing law in
Kenosha for two decades. “Wheth-
er the person is a victim is the very
thing the prosecution has to
prove.”
Several other rulings have gone
the defense’s way.
The judge prohibited the pros-
ecution from entering evidence
allegedly showing links between
Rittenhouse and the Proud Boys, a
White nationalist group. He also
rejected the prosecution’s request
to be allowed to tell the jury about
a June 2020 incident when Ritten-
house allegedly attacked a wom-
an, who at the time was in a fight
with his sister.
But Schroeder also prohibited
the defense from describing the
men he shot as “looters” or “riot-
ers,” unless the attorneys can
prove they were involved in those
acts.
Still, “I’d say he is more pro-de-
fense than pro-prosecution in tri-
al,” said Chris Rose, a second-gen-
eration criminal defense lawyer in
Kenosha who has appeared before
Schroeder “hundreds of times.”

“The rulings he has made so far
are consistent with what he has
done in the past.”
Schroeder, citing time con-
straints, declined to be inter-
viewed for this article.
A lover of history, Schroeder
quotes the Bible, Shakespeare and
medieval judicial philosophy in
his courtroom. He sometimes dis-
plays a dry sense of humor from
the bench.
During down time, he hosts a
Jeopardy-like trivia game, ap-
plauding audience members who
get the right answers.
“He’s a strange character,” said
Jeremiah Meyer-O’Day, who has
practiced criminal law in Wiscon-
sin for a decade. “He’s a little flam-
boyant.”
Mainly, though, Schroeder is all
business. As proof, defense attor-
neys point to the fact that
Schroeder empaneled a jury for
the Rittenhouse trial in one day, a
process that in high-profile cases
can often take weeks.
“He has a reputation for having
good days and bad days — I’ve
heard the word ‘mercurial’ used to
describe him,” said Dan Adams, a
former prosecutor in Milwaukee
County and now a defense attor-
ney. “But he is old school, literally
and figuratively.”

A letter from the grave
Kenosha, a city of 179,000 peo-
ple on the shores of Lake Michi-
gan, has been on edge for more
than a year awaiting Rittenhouse’s
trial. The teen traveled 20 miles
from his home in Antioch, Ill.,
armed with an AR-15 rifle, to assist
other men who said they were
protecting businesses during un-

rest.
Rittenhouse allegedly shot and
killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and
Anthony Huber, 26, while severely
wounding Grosskreutz, also 26 at
the time.
The case has made Rittenhouse
a conservative cause celebre. Last
November, the FightBack Founda-
tion — which has a mission to
“protect and defend the constitu-
tional rights, livelihoods and
property of people and businesses
that are being targeted and de-
stroyed” — raised $2 million to
post Rittenhouse’s bail.
The foundation was started by
Lin Wood, an attorney who vigor-
ously defended former president
Donald Trump and his claims of
election fraud.
While no murder trial has gen-
erated as much attention for
Schroeder’s courtroom as this one,
it is far from his first.
In December 1998, Julie Jensen
was found dead in the Pleasant
Prairie, Wis., home she shared
with her husband. The marriage
was an unhappy one, and Mark
Jensen had been having an affair
at the time of his wife’s death.
He was charged with homicide
four years later, accused of poison-
ing his 40-year-old wife with anti-
freeze, then smothering her in the
garage. His trial did not begin
until 2007, nearly a decade after
the death, and following years of
legal debate over evidence.
Schroeder was the trial judge. A
key piece of prosecution evidence
was a letter Julie Jensen wrote
advising police detectives to inves-
tigate her husband should she be
found dead. For safekeeping, the
“letter from the grave,” as it be-

came known, was given to a friend
with instructions to turn it over to
police in the event of her death.
“I pray I’m wrong + nothing
happens,” Julie wrote in the letter.
“But I am suspicious of Mark’s
suspicious behaviors + fear for my
early demise.”
Schroeder ruled the letter inad-
missible. In his view, the letter did
not meet the criteria to be catego-
rized as a dying declaration, main-
ly because Julie Jensen was not in
“imminent” danger of death when
she wrote it. That meant Jensen
had the right to cross-examine his
accuser, who in this case was his
deceased wife. She was obviously
not available, so the letter was out.
The prosecution appealed the
ruling, and the Wisconsin Su-
preme Court ordered the letter in
as evidence. The defense followed
with its own appeals.
In May of this year, the Wiscon-
sin Supreme Court tossed out
Jensen’s guilty verdict and ordered
a new trial in which the letter will
not be allowed as evidence.
“I had it 100 percent correct in
the first place,” Schroeder said in
court last week. “That was 20 years
ago. The man is still in prison. And
the case has again been reversed
because of the evidence that the
Supreme Court told me to admit.”

Second chances and overreach
While generally respected,
Schroeder is not universally loved
and has been accused of overstep-
ping his authority.
He once ordered a woman con-
victed of shoplifting, as part of her
sentence, to inform an employee
of any retail store she entered that
she was under supervision for
theft. The Wisconsin Court of Ap-
peals later voided that element of
her sentence.
In another case from the 1980s,
Schroeder ordered a babysitter ac-
cused of molesting a child to sub-
mit to an AIDS test. He began
requiring sex workers who ap-
peared before him to do the same.
“There was no statutory au-
thority for him to do that,” said
John Anthony Ward, who repre-
sented the babysitter and has ap-
peared before Schroeder an esti-
mated 500 times. “But he’s been on
the cutting edge with many of my
cases.”
But Ward added that Schroeder
“believes in giving people a second
chance if you admit to your wrong-
doing.”
A 31-year-old man who had a
case in front of Schroeder as a
juvenile said the judge let him off

easy.
“He said, ‘I’ll let you go this
time. But if I ever see you again, I’ll
put you away for life,’” said the
man, who spoke on the conditon
of anonymity for fear of legal re-
percussions.
When he faced another charge,
this time as an adult, his case was
assigned to Schroeder. Mindful of
the judge’s warning, he successful-
ly appealed for a different assign-
ment.
“He’s a stickler. But he does what
a judge is supposed to do,” he said.
“He’ll laugh with you, and smile
with you, and then he’ll book you.”
Though Schroeder is generally
perceived to be more friendly to
the defense than to the state, he
appeared to protect prosecutor
Thomas Binger from what could
have been a tactical error in the
Rittenhouse case.
During pretrial motions,
Schroeder ruled that the defense
could not introduce Rosenbaum’s
history of mental illness, includ-
ing the fact he was released from a
psychiatric hospital just before
showing up at the demonstrations
in Kenosha. Allowing the evidence
would have strengthened the de-
fense’s argument that Rittenhouse
was acting in self-defense when he
fatally shot Rosenbaum.
In his opening statement, Bin-
ger had mentioned that Rosen-
baum had been in the hospital,
although he did not say it was for
mental illness — which could have
opened the door for the defense to
introduce his health struggles.
In Kenosha, Schroeder has won
support from conservative AM ra-
dio hosts and callers, who have
praised his decisions, his manner
and his willingness to go after
critics in the media.
But the judge’s rulings have
alarmed the small group of racial
justice advocates who have gath-
ered outside the courthouse dur-
ing the trial. Primarily they cite
Schroeder’s ban on the word “vic-
tims” as the cause of their concern.
Among some Kenosha resi-
dents, as well, there is concern
that Rittenhouse will be acquitted
— and a suspicion that the judge’s
rulings will play a role.
“I think Kyle Rittenhouse is go-
ing to get off,” said Justine Tidwell,
a 25-year-old Black resident.
“They gave the case to the worst
judge in town.”
[email protected]

Griff Witte in Kenosha, Wis., and Mark
Berman and Mark Guarino in
Washington contributed to this report.

Judge’s rulings, idiosyncratic style come under scrutiny as trial nears end


Jurist who does things his
own way has ruled for
defense on several issues

SEAN KRAJACIC/THE KENOSHA NEWS/POOL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Judge Bruce Schroeder reprimands Assistant District Attorney
Thomas Binger over his line of questioning in cross-examining Kyle
Rittenhouse during the trial in Kenosha, Wis., on Wednesday.

to protect himself.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,”
said Rittenhouse, who was 17 at
the time of the shootings. “I de-
fended myself.”
The shootings became a nation-
wide flash point, with the teenager
praised as a hero by many on the
far right and pilloried as a villain
by social justice activists. The op-
posing narratives have played out
in court, with prosecutors paint-
ing Rittenhouse as a violent ag-
gressor, while his attorneys say the
teen was defending himself while
under attack.
Rittenhouse testified to his
mind-set, saying he felt under at-
tack the night of Aug. 25, 2020,
when he shot and killed Joseph
Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Hu-
ber, 26. He also shot and injured
Gaige Grosskreutz, then 26.
Rittenhouse recalled feeling
“cornered,” saying Rosenbaum
and Huber pursued him and
grabbed his gun, prompting him
to open fire. Rittenhouse then shot
Grosskreutz, he said, when that
man lunged forward while point-
ing a gun at him.
“I didn’t want to have to kill
anybody that night,” Rittenhouse
said.
Rittenhouse traveled to
Kenosha from his home in Anti-
och, Ill., about 20 miles away, head-
ing into a city rocked by demon-
strations and rioting after a White
police officer shot Jacob Blake, a
29-year-old Black man. The teen-
ager was among many armed peo-
ple who went to Kenosha in re-
sponse to footage of property de-
struction that was circulating
widely on television and online.
His trial has been dominated by
footage and still images, some of
them graphic, from the night Rit-
tenhouse encountered and shot
the three men.
On Wednesday, the proceed-
ings were repeatedly overtaken by
acrimony in the courtroom.
Schroeder admonished prosecu-
tor Thomas Binger several times,
loudly and sharply rebuking the
attorney. Schroeder has come un-
der public scrutiny for decisions
he has made in the case, including
for his move to prohibit calling the
men who were shot “victims.”
At one point on Wednesday, he
grew angry with Binger for ques-


RITTENHOUSE FROM A1 tioning Rittenhouse about not
speaking publicly on the shoot-
ings until his testimony, saying he
was impugning Rittenhouse’s
right to remain silent. In another
heated moment, Schroeder repri-
manded Binger for what he
viewed as the prosecutor’s at-
tempt to discuss a matter that the
judge had prohibited twice, in-
cluding earlier the same day.
Rittenhouse’s defense attor-
neys said they would move to have
a mistrial declared because of the
prosecution’s perceived over-
reaches, though Schroeder didn’t
make a decision on that sugges-
tion.
Tom Grieve, a Milwaukee-
based defense attorney, said it was
unusual for the defense to seek a
mistrial if it appears to be winning
a case — and this case, he said,
appears to be going Rittenhouse’s
way.
“I thought it would be better to
be the defense. I didn’t think it
would be this much better to be
the defense,” Grieve said of the
case.
He pointed to previous testimo-
ny from Richie McGinness, a vid-
eographer for the conservative
Daily Caller, who was close by
when Rittenhouse shot Rosen-
baum. McGinness testified that
Rosenbaum had chased Ritten-
house and went for his gun.
“I don’t want to say that’s as bad
as you can get for the prosecutor,
but that’s about as bad as you can
get,” Grieve said.
Rittenhouse’s testimony on
Wednesday was the first time he
spoke at length in public about
what happened. He has discussed
some elements of the case before,
telling The Washington Post in an
interview last year that he did not
regret having a gun that night,
saying: “I feel I had to protect
myself. I would have died that
night if I didn’t.”
In moments that have been dis-
sected throughout the trial,
Rosenbaum chased Rittenhouse
down a street and flung a plastic
bag toward Rittenhouse. A gun-
shot rang out nearby. Rosenbaum
tried to grab Rittenhouse’s rifle
and the teenager opened fire, kill-
ing him.
On Wednesday in court, Ritten-
house described feeling as though
Rosenbaum was “coming at me”
and had “his hand on the barrel of


my gun.” At that point, Ritten-
house said, he opened fire.
Rittenhouse testified that after
shooting Rosenbaum, he fled
toward police. He said he recalled
hearing people shouting, “Get
him, kill him,” and recounted run-
ning toward police seeking safety.
Other people began pursuing
Rittenhouse after the first shoot-
ing, including Huber, who swung
a skateboard at him. The teenager
shot Huber in the chest, killing
him.
Grosskreutz, then 26, was also
following Rittenhouse, and as he
approached with his gun drawn,
Rittenhouse fired a shot into his
right arm, pulverizing his biceps.
Rittenhouse said he fired at
Grosskreutz when the other man
lunged forward “with his pistol
pointed directly at my head.”
Grosskreutz testified Monday

that he never intended to shoot
Rittenhouse, but acknowledged
that Rittenhouse shot him only
when he was approaching the
teenager with his gun pointed at
him.
In his testimony, Rittenhouse
described his desire to promptly
go to police after the shootings,
which appeared to contrast with
testimony last week from Domin-
ick Black, the friend who bought
Rittenhouse the gun he used that
night.
Black testified that he drove
Rittenhouse back to Antioch after
the shootings and said the teen-
ager’s family suggested fleeing
town, possibly to Michigan or
West Virginia. Black said he lob-
bied for Rittenhouse to instead
turn himself in to police.
Rittenhouse’s testimony on
Wednesday did not mention any

discussions about leaving town.
Instead, he said he later turned
himself in to police in Antioch. He
was not taken into custody or
handcuffed, Rittenhouse said, but
allowed to stay in the lobby until
detectives showed up. Ritten-
house said he “was vomiting and
having panic attacks” at the time.
According to police records,
while in the police lobby, Ritten-
house said he “ended a man’s life”
and “shot two White kids.”
The prosecutor also empha-
sized that only Grosskreutz was
armed, saying that in all the en-
counters Rittenhouse had, no one
else fired a shot at him.
Rittenhouse said that he wor-
ried Rosenbaum would take his
gun and use it on the teenager and
others, growing emotional when
arguing he “didn’t want to have to
shoot him.”

“I pointed my gun at him and
that did not deter him,” Ritten-
house said of Rosenbaum. “He
could’ve ran away instead of try-
ing to take my gun from me. But he
kept chasing me.”
After Rittenhouse denied that
he intended to kill Huber, Binger
asked: “When you pulled the trig-
ger... what did you think would
happen?”
“He would no longer be a threat
to my safety,” Rittenhouse replied.
Binger answered: “Because he
would be dead. Your only concern
was for your own safety, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Rittenhouse said.
Schroeder, the judge, said he
expects the trial to conclude early
next week.
[email protected]

Guarino reported from Chicago. Kim
Bellware contributed to this report.

In testimony, Rittenhouse claims he shot in self-defense


MARK HERTZBERG/POOL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kyle Rittenhouse names people in a photograph taken on the night of Aug. 25, 2020, during testimony Wednesday at his trial in Kenosha,
Wis. He is charged with homicide and attempted homicide for shooting three men, two of them fatally, during unrest in the city last year.
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