KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — The homicide trial of Kyle Rittenhouse headed toward opening statements on Tuesday after a jury was seated in just a day despite the polarizing nature of the case.
About a dozen prospective jurors were dismissed Monday after they expressed strong opinions about the case or worried that they couldn’t be fair. Others worried about their personal safety — “No one wants to be sitting in this chair,” one woman said — but the 20-member panel was finally set by early evening.
“I figure either way this goes you’re going to have half the country upset with you and they react poorly,” said another woman, a special education teacher who expressed anxiety about serving. She was chosen.
The jury in the politically charged case must decide whether Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, as his lawyers claim, or was engaged in vigilantism when the 17-year-old opened fire with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle in August 2020, killing two men and wounding a third.
The jury includes 12 jurors and eight alternates; 11 are women and nine are men. Jurors were not asked to identify their race during the selection process, and the court did not immediately provide a racial breakdown of the group.
Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois during unrest that broke out after a white Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back. Rittenhouse said he went there to protect property after two previous nights marked by arson, gunfire and the ransacking of businesses.
The now-18-year-old Rittenhouse faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide, the most serious charge against him.
Rittenhouse has been painted by supporters on the right — including foes of the Black Lives Matter movement — as a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness by demonstrators and exercised his Second Amendment gun rights. Others see him as a vigilante and police wannabe.
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