KENOSHA, WIS. — For more than a week, Kyle Rittenhouse has sat at the defense table as his attorneys told jurors he was a well-meaning, if naive, teenager who killed two people and injured a third out of fear for his own life.
Rittenhouse, 18, now has the opportunity to tell them himself.
The prosecution was set to rest its case against the teenager as soon as Tuesday, with its attempts to portray Rittenhouse as a chaos tourist who came to town to impose his sense of justice occasionally having fallen flat. Some of the state’s own witnesses seemed to back up the self-defense claims.
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. As in other states, Wisconsin law holds that a person can shoot if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to avoid being killed or badly hurt.
The defense told jurors twice in opening statements that Rittenhouse would testify, something many legal experts believe is essential to a successful self-defense claim. In a case that hinges on the teen’s mindset when he pulled the trigger, they say, no one can provide jurors with insight into Rittenhouse’s state of mind better than Rittenhouse himself.
“It’s practically a necessity,” veteran Kenosha attorney Michael Cicchini said. “The defendant is in the best position to say what he was feeling, what his fears were, what he was thinking in that moment. I’ve never had a client in a self-defense case not testify.”
Though Rittenhouse will likely face a tough cross-examination from a veteran prosecutor, several pretrial rulings may make it easier for him to testify. Kenosha Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder already has barred prosecutors from showing two troubling videos taken in the weeks before the shooting. In one, Rittenhouse punches a girl who is fighting with his sister, while in the other he discusses wanting to shoot people he believes are shoplifting from a drugstore.
The judge also banned the prosecution from showing pictures of Rittenhouse socializing with members of a far-right organization at a Wisconsin bar earlier this year.
“If he doesn’t have a criminal background that he has to explain, then I think you absolutely put him on,” said Sam Adam Jr., a Chicago attorney also licensed to practice in Wisconsin. “He can explain what was going on in his mind and what he thought would happen to him if he didn’t shoot. It’s not a very hard story to explain, even for a teenager. It’s actually a very easy one.”
Then 17 and living in Antioch, Rittenhouse fired the shots while patrolling downtown Kenosha with an AR-15-style rifle amid the turmoil and unrest 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 day.
In videos taken that night, Rittenhouse seems to relish the attention as he speaks to videographers in police vernacular and talks about his willingness to run into harm’s way. Several witnesses testified he came off as naive and didn’t seem to pick up on the crowd’s hostility toward him as he walked among protesters, carrying a homemade first aid kit and offering his medical services.
Legal experts, however, believe youth and inexperience could prove beneficial on the witness stand. At the time of the shooting, Rittenhouse had dropped out of high school and was taking online classes to get his degree.
“His defense is that he was obviously scared. So, something that comes off as showing some fear in his testimony, that (self-defense claim) could be accomplished with a young defendant speaking with a jury,” said attorney Dan Herbert, who represented Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in the October 2014 shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Van Dyke briefly considered not testifying because he and his attorneys thought they had scored several critical points during the prosecution’s case and didn’t want to risk losing them. The conversation was short-lived, however, and his team reverted back to the original plan to take the witness stand.
Herbert said they spent hours prepping Van Dyke, who was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a nearly seven-year prison sentence. Herbert said he was sure Rittenhouse’s attorneys have been doing the same.
“You would go through several mock direct examinations and cross-examinations,” Herbert said. “For the most part, they’re going to know 95% of the questions that (Rittenhouse) is going to be asked so you go through it thoroughly.”
Legal experts say Rittenhouse’s team could decide not to put him on the stand if it believes other witnesses have done enough to convey his mindset that night. Indeed, several key witnesses offered testimony that seemed to bolster the self-defense argument, including the man he injured.
Grosskreutz, the only man to survive being shot by Rittenhouse, testified he believed some people chasing Rittenhouse down the street intended to hurt the teen. Grosskreutz, a trained paramedic, also confirmed he had a gun in his right hand and pointed toward the teen as he took a step in his direction after Rittenhouse fatally shot Huber.
And arguably the state’s most credible witness, professional videographer Richard McGinniss, told the jury an unarmed Rosenbaum lunged for Rittenhouse’s gun before being shot.
Rittenhouse, however, is also charged with recklessly endangering McGinniss’ life and faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted. In testimony that could be key to deciding that charge, McGinniss — who is considered a victim by prosecutors because of his proximity to the shooting — said he felt he was in danger when Rittenhouse fired.
The defense tried to get McGinniss to tell the jurors Rittenhouse could not have seen McGinniss when he pulled the trigger, but the videographer held firm that it was possible.
There could be enough unanswered questions, legal experts say, that Rittenhouse’s defense team may want to close the loop by putting the teen on the stand. Few believed his attorneys had much to lose by doing so.
“It’s a good position to be in,” Adam said. “You’ve got a teenager, who looks like a teenager. If he comes off as scared or unpolished up there, it won’t hurt him and it will probably help him. There’s really very little risk.”
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