The Daily - The Acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

This episode contains strong language.On Aug. 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager, shot three men, two of them fatally, during street protests in Kenosha, Wis., over the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.Mr. Rittenhouse’s trial, which began on Nov. 1, revolved around a central question: Did his actions constitute self-defense under Wisconsin law?Last week, a jury decided that they did, finding him not guilty on every count against him.We look at key moments from the trial and at how the verdict was reached.Guest: Julie Bosman, the Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Mr. Rittenhouse’s acquittal pointed to the wide berth given to defendants who say they acted out of fear.The trial highlighted the deep division over gun rights in the United States.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Has the jury reached a verdict as to each count of the information? Yes, we have, Your Honor. One verdict and one verdict only? Yes. Today. As to the first count of the information, we need the jury to find the defendant, Kyle H. Rickhouse, not guilty.

As to the second count of the information, as to the third count of the information, read the jury, find the defendant, Kyle H. Rittenhouse, not guilty. As to the second count of the information, the third count of the information, the fourth count of the information, as to the fifth count of the information, read the jury, find the defendant, Kyle H. Rittenhouse, not guilty. A jury has acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on all five charges that he faced. My colleague, Julie Bosman, was at the courthouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It's Monday, November 22nd. Julie, the last time we spoke with you, this trial had just gotten underway. And you had told us that Kyle Rittenhouse and his lawyers had a relatively strong case, given the trial's focus on self-defense. So just remind us why that was the thinking.

So I think for a lot of people, this case has been about a lot of different things. What people saw in the very beginning was the image of Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teenager who had brought a rifle to a protest that had grown out of a police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. They saw images and video of Kyle Rittenhouse walking down a city street carrying an AR-15 style rifle. And they learned that he had shot and killed two people and shot and wounded a third man. All of the people who were shot were white, and two of them were unarmed. So these were the things that everyone in this country had immediately learned about Kyle Rittenhouse. But when this trial started in Kenosha on November 1st,

it was really just about one thing. And that was under Wisconsin state law, the question of self-defense. Did Kyle Rittenhouse act in self-defense when he shot and killed two people and wounded another? Did he reasonably fear for his life or fear that he would suffer great bodily harm when he fired those eight shots in Kenosha? Right, but there was uncertainty about exactly how the trial would unfold, about just how sympathetic the jury would be to Rittenhouse and to his argument of self-defense, and whether the prosecution could show that Rittenhouse shouldn't have feared for his life. And given that Rittenhouse was found not guilty on every single count, clearly the prosecution didn't accomplish that. So we want to talk to you about the key moments in this trial that explain why that was, why this trial ended up being such a complete victory for Rittenhouse.

Where should we start? All right, let's proceed with the state's case. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The evidence in this case will show that on the night of August 25th, 2020... Well, a lot of the testimony that we heard over the three weeks of this trial centered on the three men that Kyle Rittenhouse shot. And the first person who was shot was a 36-year-old named Joseph Rosenbaum. Tell us about that testimony. So, in theory, Joseph Rosenbaum would have been

a pretty challenging element for the defense lawyers. He was seen carrying what looked like a kind of clear plastic bag throughout the evening. He was five foot four. He was probably not there as a protester, but he came downtown for reasons that aren't clear. Did you see him with any sort of weapon? Outside of that bag, no. He was unarmed. No gun?

No. No knife? No. No chain? So throughout the trial, this was a point that the prosecutor made over and over from witness to witness. Did you see him with a club or a bat of any kind? That Joseph Rosenbaum was not

armed with a gun that night. Did you ever see a weapon on Mr. Rosenbaum? I did not. But as the trial went on, some witnesses began to offer testimony that painted Rosenbaum as a much more problematic figure for the prosecution. Please state your first and last name and spell them for the benefit of the court reporter. Carrie Ann Swart, it's spelled K-A-R-R-O-N-D. This happened early on with one of the prosecution's witnesses, who was Joseph Rosenbaum's fiancee. And the prosecutor asked her in her testimony, Do you know if he was able to procure any medication that day? If Rosenbaum had picked up his medication that day.

He was not able to fill the prescriptions he had because the Walgreens closest to us had been boarded up and closed down due to the chaos that was going on. Which then opened the door to a new line of questioning from the defense. You had answered some questions from Attorney Krause regarding Joseph taking medications that day? Correct. Okay. Did you know what he took that for? Bipolar disorder. Okay. Any other medications that you know that he took? I know he was on an antidepressant. At that time, I don't know which one they had him on. Okay. And why does that matter? For the jury, I think that that gave them a piece of information that suggested that he was suffering from mental health issues and being treated for them. So that created a question for the jury about Rosenbaum's state of mind.

This is a photo of Rosenbaum walking to the St. James lot that was under construction at the time. This is where just before he tips over a porta potty. And then as testimony continued, we heard from witnesses who had seen Rosenbaum that evening. At one point, he was starting a fire. Describe that. People were tipping over a port-a-potty and lighting it on fire. He was shouting at people. He was yelling, fuck the police, over and over and over.

I'm not afraid to go back to jail. And shoot me N-word, shoot me n-word. And, you know, shouting racial epithets and scuffling with other people in front of a gas station. Could you state your name for the record and spell your last name? Richie McGinnis, R-I-C-H-I-E. And then we heard from a really crucial witness named Richie McGinnis, who's a video director for the Daily Caller, a conservative site. What happened? I could hear a lot of yelling and I could see there was a crowd of people in the street.

And one individual, Mr. Rosenbaum, advancing towards Mr. Rittenhouse, as well as a couple of other individuals who were moving. And Richie McGinnis testified that he saw Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse. He saw Rittenhouse start to yell, friendly, friendly, in Rosenbaum's direction, meaning, I'm not a threat to you. I'm friendly. I'm friendly. Mr. Rosenbaum ran after him, and I was behind both of them. And Richie McGinnis, who was the only person who was really standing close to them when the first shooting occurred, testified that he saw Rosenbaum continue to chase Rittenhouse until Rittenhouse whirled around.

At this moment, when he stopped, it was aimed about 45 degrees at the ground. And he saw Rosenbaum lunge forward and... When Mr. Rosenbaum lunged, Mr. Rittenhouse kind of dodged around. Reached for the barrel of the rifle. And then that's when it was leveled at Mr. Rosenbaum and fired. So all of this was very damaging to the state because the jury was starting to get a picture of Joseph Rosenbaum as someone who was behaving erratically and someone who posed a physical threat to Kyle Rittenhouse. Got it. mentally ill, perhaps unstable, behaving erratically, at times violently, that he initiates an encounter with Rittenhouse in which he's chasing Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse is trying

to convince Rosenbaum that he, Rittenhouse, is not a threat, but Rosenbaum persists and ultimately seems to grab after Rittenhouse's gun. Right. And the reason that this was so important is that from the beginning of this trial, the defense knew that if they could convince the jury that that was a justified shooting, then they would have a much better chance of convincing the jury that the other shootings were also justified. Okay, let's turn to the next of those two shootings and the testimony around them. So the second person who was shot was a 26-year-old man named Anthony Huber.

And Huber also would seem on the surface to be a real problem for Kyle Rittenhouse's defense. Like Joseph Rosenbaum, he was not carrying a gun that night. Did Anthony Huber forfeit his life by trying to be a hero and stop an active shooter and protect others? And the prosecution described Huber as a hero. Anthony Huber tries to grab the gun, actually does grab the defendant's gun, and tries to pull it away because he's trying to disarm an active shooter. He was holding his skateboard when the first shots rang out. He

started running immediately as Kyle Rittenhouse was running down the street and people were shouting to get him, that he was the shooter, that people in the crowd needed to tackle him. And so Anthony Huber was one of the people who tried to do that. He caught up with Rittenhouse. the people who tried to do that. He caught up with Rittenhouse. He hit him on his head with his skateboard, and Rittenhouse shot him once in the chest and killed him. So the potential problem for the defense here is that Huber is being described as a civic-minded person trying to stop a shooter from, I guess, shooting more people. And that could make a self-defense argument trickier. Exactly. So the defense then started to set up a counter narrative. They started to make the case that Huber was actually a lethal threat to Kyle Rittenhouse.

Mr. Washington, we just saw an individual walk through the video carrying a skateboard. Did you see that person? Yes. Do you have any idea who that is? No. One of the defense lawyers questioned a live streamer who testified, and this live streamer was there that night. He was taking video of what had happened.

Mr. Huber has a skateboard. On that particular night, did you have a skateboard? Yes. And he happened to be a skateboarder. So the defense lawyer was asking the live streamer... If you were going to swing that skateboard in an effort to create some velocity and hurt someone, how would you swing it?

If I was going to swing my skateboard to hurt someone? Could you inflict great harm on this person by using a skateboard? Hmm. And as you have explained, in this case, the recurring question that matters, perhaps the only question that matters, is did Kyle Rittenhouse see each and every one of these people as a potentially lethal threat to him? Yes. So the jury, again, has to go back to that basic question

of how Kyle Rittenhouse is viewing the situation and how he viewed the threat that he had faced. And whether Kyle Rittenhouse's view that night and his assessment of those threats was reasonable, that is the question, the very narrow question before the jury. Right. And what's interesting about that is that it means that threats was reasonable. That is the question, the very narrow question before the jury. Right. And what's interesting about that is that it means that the self-defense argument here doesn't really acknowledge the idea that somebody like Huber thinks that he's protecting the public from Rittenhouse and Rittenhouse's gun in this moment. It only sees Huber's actions to disarm or to disable Rittenhouse as a threat to Rittenhouse.

Right, because Anthony Huber, of course, is not here to explain in a courtroom what he was thinking or feeling that night or how threatening he saw Kyle Rittenhouse. That is a question that was not able to be answered. saw Kyle Rittenhouse? That is a question that was not able to be answered. So at this point, we can see that the prosecution's case is starting to crumble a little bit. Yes, but the prosecution had another witness lined up, Gage Grosskreutz, who was a 26-year-old who was there that night, and he was the third person who Kyle Rittenhouse shot that evening. And unlike the other two people who were shot, Grosskreutz survived with a shot to the arm. So he could describe what he was doing, what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what he saw that night. And the question was, would that undermine the self-defense argument

that Kyle Rittenhouse's lawyers had made so far? We'll be right back. All right, let's go. They say calls gauge Grosskreutz. So Julie, tell us about the testimony from this third person shot by Kyle Rittenhouse and the only one to survive, Grosskreutz, and where his testimony leaves Rittenhouse's case for self-defense. So like Anthony Huber, the prosecution had presented Grosskreutz as a heroic figure. Went to school to be an EMT basic. After completing that course, I then worked as a EMT on a private ambulance. Grosskreutz was a trained paramedic. He was a person who had attended a lot of protests

in a capacity as a volunteer medic. I'd heard these gunshots. And he testified that he heard the shots that had killed Rosenbaum. And then after seeing people running northbound and then hearing people yelling medic, I started running southbound towards what I presumed at the time to be the origin of the gunshots. And wanted to immediately go and help and see who had been shot and if he could render medical aid. So like Huber, a seemingly sympathetic character. Yes, but early on the prosecution confronted one of the facts that made Gage Grosskreutz a pretty complicated witness. Were you carrying any of your equipment with you?

I was. Were you armed? I was. He acknowledged that he was carrying a gun that night as well. I was. He acknowledged that he was carrying a gun that night as well. It's keys, phone, wallet, gun. Grosskreutz testified that he carried a gun very frequently. I believe in the Second Amendment. I am for people's right to carry and bear arms. And that night was no different than any other day. And it was framed as,

look, this guy is just another supporter of the Second Amendment, and that's how he's exercising that right. But in the context of what happened in Kenosha that night, it got a little more complex. What do you mean? Well... After I had turned around

and started running in the same direction as the defendant... Very quickly, he found himself in the middle of the street as Kyle Rittenhouse was fleeing. I'd started hearing people saying, he just shot that guy, he just shot somebody. And people in the crowd were chasing Rittenhouse. I'd seen an individual use a skateboard to hit the defendant. And then from there, I had another shot.

Grosskreutz was only a few feet away when Rittenhouse shot and killed Anthony Huber. Did you witness him fire a shot into Mr. Huber's chest? I did. And at this point... In my right hand, I had my Glock pistol, and in my left hand, I had my cell phone. Grosskreutz had reached behind him and pulled out his gun, which he was holding, and standing face-to-face with Kyle Rittenhouse, who is now on the ground and still holding his rifle. What was going through your mind at this particular moment? That I was going to die? Let's continue the video for just a second, please.

Let's continue the video for just a second, please. And then Grosskreutz testifies that he raises his arms in the air in a gesture of surrender. Did you see the defendant do anything with his gun after you put your hands up? I did. What did you see him do? I did. What did you see him do? It's an action that's typically referred to as re-racking. And then he testifies that he sees Kyle Rittenhouse make some kind of motion with his rifle.

So after you raised your hands like this, you saw the defendant re-rack the weapon? Correct. What did you think was going to happen? In my experiences and in my inference in that moment, the defendant had pointed his weapon at me and I had put my hands in the air. Re-racking the weapon, in my mind, meant that the defendant pulled the trigger while my hands were in the air, but the gun didn't fire.

So then by re-racking the weapon, I inferred that the defendant wasn't accepting my surrender. Did you feel that he was going to point the gun and shoot at you again? Yes. What did you do then? the defendant had re-racked his weapon with the rifle still aimed at me. In that moment, I felt that I had to do something to try and prevent myself from being killed or being shot or killed.

And this is where, on cross-examination the defense turned this around in Rittenhouse's favor. So your hands are up and at that point he has not fired at you, correct? No, he has not. The defense lawyer who was questioning Grosskreutz asked him about this exact moment. You would agree at this point, you are dropping your hands, you are loading your front foot, and you are moving toward Mr. Rittenhouse at that point, true? Yes.

And Grosskreutz says that he began moving toward Rittenhouse to stop him in what he said was a non-lethal way, presumably without having to shoot him. At this point, you're holding a loaded, chambered Glock 27 in your right hand. Yes? That is correct, yes. You are advancing on Mr. Rittenhouse, who is seated on his butt, right? That is correct. You're moving forward, and your right hand drops down with your gun.

Your hands are no longer up, and now the gun is pointed in the direction of Mr. Rittenhouse. Agree? I'll give you a picture. Maybe that'll help. And in a pretty powerful moment. Now, you'd agree your firearm is pointed at Mr. Rittenhouse, correct? Yes. Okay. The defense lawyer got Grosskreutz to admit that he was pointing his gun in Rittenhouse's direction.

So when you were standing three to five feet from him with your arms up in the air, he never fired, right? Correct. It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him with your gun, now your hands down, pointed at him, then he fired, right? Correct. So right now, instead of this image of Kyle Rittenhouse shooting at someone who was trying to render aid, we have an image of Kyle Rittenhouse on the ground and Gage Grosskreutz standing and two men pointing their guns at each other until Rittenhouse fires a single shot, which hits Grosskreutz in the right bicep. So we're just seeing that encounter slightly differently and

in a way that I think became really problematic for the prosecution's case. Nothing else. You may stick down, sir. So that's how these three key encounters in this case played out to the legal benefit of Rittenhouse. I'm curious, as somebody in the courtroom, Julie, did anything else in the trial seem to strengthen Rittenhouse's case and help explain how the jury gets to the point where it ultimately ended up? I would point to Kyle Rittenhouse's testimony. Could you please state your name, spelling your last name for the record? Kyle Rittenhouse, R-I-T-T-E-N-A. I think that the central question of this case was his self-defense argument. If his defense hinged on that question and the fact that he was saying that his life was in danger, only Kyle Rittenhouse could effectively make that case to the jury. Me and Ryan Balch were a little bit north, towards the north corner of 59th and

Sheridan, and Mr. Rosenbaum was walking. So not long into his testimony, Rittenhouse's lawyer began asking him about what had led up to the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum. Describe what happened. I, once I take that step back, I look over my shoulder and Mr. Rosenbaum, Mr. Rosenbaum was now running from my right side. And I was cornered from in front of me with Mr. Zeminski. And there were... And as Rittenhouse started to get into details about what had happened, he began sobbing. He was almost gasping for air. You can just relax for a minute, sir.

We're going to take a break, about 10 minutes, and please don't talk about the case. And the judge very quickly called a recess so that Rittenhouse could compose himself and get back to testimony. House could compose himself and get back to testimony. And what do you think that would have represented to the jury as they thought about this self-defense case and his state of mind? You know, they were trying to emphasize his youth, and they were trying to get across the point that he was scared that night, which, of course, goes back and supports his self-defense claim. Mm-hmm.

of course, goes back and supports his self-defense claim. You came to Kenosha that night armed with the AR-15 and no other ways to physically defend yourself, correct? I had an AR-15, yes. And other than that, he was pretty composed throughout most of his testimony. Why do you need the gun when you go out there? I need the gun because if I had to protect myself because somebody attacked me, why would you think anybody would do that? I don't know.

But you clearly planned on it. You were prepared for it. You thought it was going to happen. No, I didn't. That's the whole reason you brought the gun, isn't it? I brought the gun to protect myself. And during the cross-examination, the prosecutor questioned his decision to bring his gun downtown. They had questioned his motivations. I don't understand. You said you're going to bring the gun to protect yourself. So you thought you were going to be in danger, right? I didn't think I would be put into a situation

where I would have to defend myself. But Rittenhouse was a pretty consistent witness. Everybody that you shot at that night, you intended to kill, correct? I didn't intend to kill them. I intended to stop the people who were attacking me. By killing them? I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me. By killing them? I did what I had to do to stop the person who was attacking me. He kept sticking to his story that he was just trying to defend himself in the moment and that

if he hadn't killed Rosenbaum, that Rosenbaum would have taken his gun and perhaps killed other people with it, along with Rittenhouse. I have no further questions. We don't have anything on the entire car. You may step down, sir. So the final element of this trial is the gun itself, the one Rittenhouse used in these three shootings. And Julie, you had told us in our last conversation that because Carl Rittenhouse was 17 when all this happened, it was possible that his possession of that gun on that night might be considered illegal and that could color the entire

trial in a way that was bad for Rittenhouse. So what ended up happening with that in this case? So this is another thing that went the defense's way in the trial. So at the very beginning, the defense tried to knock out this illegal gun possession charge. And this was a charge that because he was not 18, he was too young to possess this gun. And the defense had made an argument that Kyle Rittenhouse actually did not violate the statute because of the length of his rifle. violate the statute because of the length of his rifle. And near the end of the trial, the judge, in a surprise, did throw out that gun possession charge. So when the jury entered their deliberations, the gun possession charge was no longer something that they could consider. Mm-hmm. What do we now know about the jury's deliberations? Well, one thing that was really striking about the

deliberations is just how long they took. The jury deliberated for three and a half days. At one point, they asked if they could rewatch videos that portrayed each of the three shootings. One day, one of the jurors asked if she could bring the jury instructions home with her. This was 36 pages of, you know, very dense, very hard to understand instructions. And the judge said that he would allow her to do that, even though that was a pretty unusual request. Of course, in the end, the jurors were agreed that it was a full acquittal. And they all left the courthouse that day without stopping to speak to any reporters. So it's hard to get clarity into what their discussions were like at this point. But it is clear that the jury was really wrestling with the complexity of this case and the complexity

of each of those five counts. Right. And it seems that the rest of the country is still wrestling with the complexity of this case. Well, I think that since this case began, people have been looking at Kyle Rittenhouse, the individual. There has been so much focus on who he is, what he believes, what he was thinking, you know, what his motivations were. But I think that what this verdict shows is that this case is about something much bigger than just one person. I think this really shows us that self-defense laws are colliding with another set of laws, with open carry laws. In dozens of states, it is legal to openly carry a firearm in public. And I think that the self-defense laws that are on the books tended to spring from a different era where people kept guns at home. But now open carry, like in Wisconsin, allows people to bring guns into public places.

You can bring your gun to the grocery store or to a crowded demonstration. So to focus on Kyle Rittenhouse, the person, feels to me like it's missing the larger point of this case. We are now at a moment where someone can bring a gun into a public place, shoot someone, maybe even kill them, and still mount a successful self-defense case because that person felt threatened by the other. So whether you like it or not, the reality is that this is where our gun laws and our self-defense laws have brought us.

Thank you, Julie. We appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to Notre Dame. On this vote, the yeas are 220, the nays are 213. The Build Back Better bill is passed. After passing in the House of Representatives on Friday, President Biden's $2 trillion climate and social spending bill

is now in the hands of the U.S. Senate. The bill would, among other things now in the hands of the U.S. Senate. The bill would, among other things, cap the cost of child care, provide paid family and medical leave for workers, and tax polluting industries. Its future in the evenly split Senate is uncertain, given the objections of two moderates, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. But on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted the Senate would pass the bill by Christmas. Look, everyone knows the House did a very strong bill. Everyone knows that Manchin and Sinema have their concerns.

But we're going to try to negotiate with them and get a very strong, bold bill out of the Senate, which will then go back to the House and pass. And police in the city of Waukesha, Wisconsin, said that multiple people, including children, were killed and injured on Sunday afternoon when the driver of an SUV plowed into crowds gathered for a holiday parade. crowds gathered for a holiday parade. The police said that a person of interest was in custody, but offered no information about a possible motive. Today's episode was produced by Daniel Guimet and Claire Tennisgetter, with help from Alexander Lee Young. It was edited by Larissa Anderson and engineered by Chris Wood.

It was edited by Larissa Anderson and engineered by Chris Wood. Original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lozano. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.