Keyboard critics across the country are weighing in on Kenosha circuit court Judge Bruce Schroeder’s handling of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial — and not everybody is a fan.
The white-haired septuagenarian overseeing the high-profile homicide case has been the constant target of the liberal media and angry court watchers who believe the Milwaukee-born registered Democrat has his thumb on the scale for the defense. They’ve mocked his mental acuity and taken issue with his courtroom procedures and inconsistencies.
Letters, emails, faxes, and old-fashioned postcards decorated with orioles, a doll, and even the Hungarian parliament building have been pouring in. Some offer advice, others praise, and then there are the expletive-laden ones that accuse the judge of being unethical, racist, biased, and technologically obtuse.
KYLE RITTENHOUSE IS NOT A VICTIM, BUT HE IS NOT A HERO
And it’s the clerk of court’s job to enter them all into the Rittenhouse docket.
Someone who referred to themselves as “American Citizen” wrote: “You are a disgrace to the bench. You are a senile old piece of crap. God will judge you accordingly,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Another said Schroeder “needs to be fired” and accused the judge of giving Rittenhouse “a free ride.”
Another accused him of looking at the 18-year-old defendant with a “fawning gaze.”
In her note, Veronica Carbajal of Houston accused Black Lives Matter activists of staging events “in order to put their enemies in prison for life” and asked Schroeder to “drop all charges against Kyle Rittenhouse immediately, and give him and his family the protection they desperately need.”
But not all the notes have been as caustic.
Jeffrey Meyer of Palm Springs, California, wrote: “I believe Kyle acted in self defense and wanted to please express my unbiased opinion as well as express my gratitude for your honor’s application of blind justice.”
From the start, Schroeder has leaned into his eccentricities.
On Wednesday, as he was waiting to dismiss jurors for the evening (he had briefly forgotten about the alternates), he gave those in the courtroom an unsolicited meandering history lesson about the building before veering off to a comment about a runaway slave from St. Louis and eventually landing on the topic of air conditioning. He sometimes trails off mid-sentence and has admittedly had a hard time grasping basic technology.
But Schroeder is no shrinking violet, and he gives as good as he gets.
He blasted the media on Wednesday for “misinformation,” and he took issue with those who were critical of his decision to forbid prosecutors from referring to the three men Rittenhouse shot as “victims.”
“How would you like to be put on trial for a crime, and the judge introduced the case to the jury by introducing you as the defendant and the person who is accusing you as the victim, and then throughout the trial have all the references to the complaining witness as being the victim?” Schroeder asked. “Is it so difficult to just use the term ‘complaining witness’ instead of prejudging what the jury is here to determine as to whether there’s a victim and whether there was a crime committed?”
He also came under attack for allowing Rittenhouse to draw slips of paper from a raffle drum, choosing anonymously which 12 jurors would decide his fate and which six would be alternates. It’s not a common way to whittle down jurors, but it isn’t illegal, and it’s something Schroeder has been doing for years.
Schroeder was also critical of a piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that questioned why he had not read the defense’s motion to dismiss the case against Rittenhouse.
“I haven’t even had a chance to read the motion to dismiss,” he said Wednesday. “I just got it yesterday.”
FIVE MOMENTS IN RITTENHOUSE TRIAL THAT COULD SWAY JURY
The media also took him to task for making a joke about food for the jury.
“I hope the Asian food isn’t coming … isn’t on one of those boats in Long Beach Harbor,” Schroeder said.
The joke appeared to reference the supply chain backlog affecting California ports that has left boats idling for days waiting to come ashore.
“The biased judge in the Rittenhouse trial just made a thinly-veiled anti-Asian comment,” tweeted Stanford law professor Michele Dauber. “Because all Asian food comes from China like the boats haha what a bigot.”
The biased judge in the Rittenhouse trial just made a thinly-veiled anti-Asian comment. When asked when lunch was coming he said “I hope the Asian food isn’t on one of those boats in Long Beach harbor.” Because all Asian food comes from China like the boats haha what a bigot. pic.twitter.com/4PUxulpVJO
— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) November 11, 2021
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean used a clip of the joke to claim, “Schroeder has provided an example of how not to be a good judge.”
“They are elected after initial appointment, and there is no retirement age. This is why we have intemperate and unfit judges like this all over the country,” he added.
Rittenhouse is charged in the fatal shootings of Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. He also wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 28, after shooting him in the arm and blowing off his bicep.
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The youth cadet from Antioch, Illinois, faces five criminal charges ranging from intentional homicide to recklessly endangering safety that could land him behind bars for the rest of his life, though Schroeder allowed the jury to consider lesser counts.
