From humiliating defendants to giving them wide latitude, the ‘confident’ judge overseeing Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial doesn’t shy from controversy
KENOSHA, Wis. — In the weeks leading up to Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial, attorneys on both sides made clear they wanted prospective jurors to fill out questionnaires before the selection process began.
It was a fairly routine request, given judges and attorneys across the country have relied upon such forms for decades in high-profile trials to identify people with potential biases and conflicts of interest.
But Kenosha Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder wouldn’t hear of it.
“I maybe have tried more murder cases than anyone in the state and I’ve never used a jury questionnaire that I can recall,” he told the lawyers. “And if I did, it was a moment of weakness.”
And so it goes in Schroeder’s courtroom, where Wisconsin’s longest-serving circuit judge presides over cases with hard-line positions and chatty asides.
Schroeder, 75, will step into the national spotlight Monday as jury selection begins in Rittenhouse’s murder trial.
Rittenhouse, who lived in far north suburban Chicago, was 17 when he fatally shot two people and injured a third in
