The night before the verdict was returned, Schroeder allowed one juror to bring home legal instructions, a decision one lawyer described as “definitely unusual.” “The natural issue is that it will precipitate armchair research and table discussion,” former prosecutor Tom Grieve told the Associated Press. The judge then requested “a round of applause” for Black, a move that legal experts decried as inappropriate and something that could improperly skew jurors’ perception of the witness. Schroeder then noted that the next defense witness, a use of force expert named John Black, was a veteran. When none said they were, Schroeder asked those in the courtroom gallery if any of them were veterans. On Veterans Day, Schroeder brought the jury into the courtroom and asked if anyone among them was a veteran. The song, which came out in 1984, became known in recent years as one of ex-President Donald Trump’s entrance tunes at political rallies. When his cellphone began ringing as a defense attorney was speaking, it began blaring Lee Greenwood’s treacly patriotic anthem, “God Bless the U.S.A.” Schroeder quickly silenced his phone and tried to act as if nothing happened, but onlookers raised a plethora of questions about the judge’s sympathies. No ‘Victims’Īt one point during the trial, Schroeder, who barred prosecutors from referring to Rittenhouse’s victims as “victims,” faced scrutiny over his choice of ringtone. “I hope the Asian food… isn’t on one of those boats in Long Beach Harbor,” he said, ham-handedly referring to the supply chain issues currently occurring among certain U.S. Schroeder also came under fire for a remark he made previously about a lunch order. “And when the clerk, the government official, drew the name out of the tumbler, it was a Black, the Black, the only Black… I think people feel better when they have control, so ever since that case, I’ve had an almost universal policy of having the defendant do the picks.” “There were 13 jurors, one of whom was Black,” Schroeder said. He claimed he last let a clerk choose the juror names 20 years ago, which led to “a bad optic” since the defendant on trial was Black. In attempting to later explain his decision, Schroeder went off on a bizarre rant with racial overtones. The rest would go on to decide Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence. Rittenhouse then drew six of the slips, with the numbers 11, 58, 14, 45, 9, and 52. At Schroeder’s request, Rittenhouse’s defense team put 18 slips of paper with the ID numbers of all the jurors, including alternates, into a raffle hopper. Schroeder was also slammed by legal experts for letting Rittenhouse himself pick the names of the final 12 jurors who would decide his fate. Rittenhouse’s AR-15 was not short-barreled, which Schroeder used to dismiss the gun charge last week, mere hours before jurors began deliberations. But Rittenhouse’s lawyers found a loophole stemming from a 1991 bill, which allows minors to own rifles or shotguns as long as they are not short-barreled. In Wisconsin, anyone under the age of 18 is prohibited from owning a “dangerous weapon.” No one disputed that Rittenhouse was 17 when he brought a rifle to Kenosha, which could have put him in jail for up to nine months. One of the easiest charges for prosecutors to prove, according to legal experts, was a misdemeanor weapons possession count over Rittenhouse’s gun. Here are the wildest decisions and remarks by the Wisconsin judge: Rifle Loophole Schroeder’s debatable handling of the case has provoked no shortage of outrage during the trial, and his style behind the bench raised eyebrows more than once. In testimony last week, Rittenhouse said, “The person that attacked me first threatened to kill me twice.” On Friday, a jury found the 18-year-old not guilty of five charges, including first-degree reckless homicide, at the end of a trial marred with bizarre prosecutorial squabbles, slams at the media, and controversial decisions by Schroeder. Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys presented the then-17-year-old’s actions as justified self-defense, saying he had no choice.
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