The judge presiding over the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial in Wisconsin slammed media coverage of the highly-divisive case on Wednesday. “There are people on the media, on reputable sites, that are saying things that are totally bizarre,” Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder said in a sprawling rant after sending the jurors out of the room. The diatribe came amid discussions on whether to play a video of the unrest in the city last summer to jurors in which the narrator continually referrers to Rittenhouse and others around him as “militia members.”
Rittenhouse, 18, is facing several charges, including first-degree reckless homicide, after killing two people and injuring a third on Aug. 25, 2020.
Schroeder insisted to the prosecution and defense that over the last few weeks, he has heard a lot of chatter about the case and reports about how he “messed up” the 2008 murder trial of a man accused of poisoning his wife with antifreeze and smothering her. “Actually, I had it 100% correct in the first place,” Schroeder said, despite the state Supreme Court ruling he had improperly allowed evidence in that trial. The judge went on to claim that several people on television, including CNN commentator Jeffrey Toobin, have discussed the latest case at length without being familiar with Wisconsin case law.
