By Ethan Duran
Trial TV cameras may have focused on Kyle Rittenhouse (click here) after his acquittal, but another person in the courtroom attracted much of the spotlight during the explosive case – Judge Bruce Schroeder.
The 75-year-old jurist has earned a reputation for his mix of approachability and a no-nonsense attitude that can make his position brutally clear.
Schroeder, appointed in 1983 and the longest serving circuit judge in Wisconsin, enjoys a good lunch, likes to quote from classic works and has Lee Greenwood’s 1984 patriotic anthem God Bless The USA as his cell phone ringtone....
I don't know what the Chief of Police thought of the Governor's investigation and I don't really care. But, the fact it was a political issue at all as a man shot in the back 7 times lay in a hospital bed lent opportunity to the extremist right wing gun lobby. It was the right wing gun lobby that inspired Rittenhouse and his friends that assisted him in getting a military style weapon while underage.
The judge involved was appointed by a Democratic Governor. His ability to present himself as fair and impartial was never at the center of the trial, he was definitely going to fry the rioters regardless of their deaths. One might ask why, and the answer would be the populism brought to the state by the political right wing. Remember, Wisconsin is always one of those states where Republicans can be considered for office and even win and become Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, now on the Board at FOX. So, with guns on the line everyone with an interest went to work to win over Wisconsin again for the next election and beyond.
What resulted was a judge focused on the populism of the people and not the fairness of the trial. He knew Rittenhouse would be given every opportunity to exonerate himself including corruption, which is what the prosecutor tried to relay to the jury in some of his statements and questions.
The judge decided the First Amendment to the USA Constitution didn't apply to the prosecutor and stated the victims of the shooting by Rittenhouse could not be called victims. That, in my opinion, was opening the door to corruption. The judge had no respect for the dead and didn't bother to let them have every opportunity to receive justice. While the names of the dead and the one man who was permanently injuried by the miltiary style weapon were disregarded as important by the judge. The victims of Rittenhouse were not respected. They were among the looters and rioters. How could anyone give them respect? HUMAN RIGHTS. That works for me.
I realize there were some pivot points in the trial that were significant, the picture showing Rittenhouse in a picture that the prosecutor stated he was never there. Well, he was almost never there because he was a distance. The defense attorneys had to work rather hard to blow up the picture big enough to show Rittenhouse was in the neighborhood. The other was when the gentleman now permanently disabled stated he pointed his gun at Rittenhouse. That was viewed most likely as a equal gun draw and therefore Rittenhouse was correct in firing his weapon to save his own life.
But, there was more to it than that which the jury wasn't considering because the prosecution was never allowed to make the case entirely. Not to beleaguer the point, but, Rittenhouse came from out of state to a scene where protests occurred with a curfew that was violated by the rioters. Why would anyone come to a place with obvious danger in the air? Why? His gun, that's why. Rittenhouse brought a military style weapon to riots where people were unarmed, but, causing fires and destruction. So, therefore, with all the media egging on anyone with a weapon to end the riots, Rittenhouse did exactly that. We know through his own testimony that the media influenced him and he saw himself as a hero of sorts that bandaged people up that were hurt and put out fires that were started. So Rittenhouse was not only a hero type, he was now a soldier on a mission to protect property. He was placing the value of property before lives when he entered Kenoshaw. Killing was not going to be a problem for him, hence, his vigilante status.
The interference the judge laid down for the prosecution was significant. It started pretrial and never ended. He went on to call the prosecutor a trouble maker that wasn't going to get away with it in his courtroom. So, not only was Rittenhouse influenced by the media, so was the judge. The judge was not impartial and at the end of the trial when the verdict was read the conclusion was that Kenosha recieved justice. Did they really? And. Justice for who?
President Biden stated we, as a country, accepts the decision of juries and we do. There was also no reason to debate what the jury thought or didn't think because they were never allowed an unbias display of facts in the courtroom. The jury's deliberations were most likely through based on the law, but, it was tainted when they began their deliberations no matter how fair minded they were going to be.
The verdict is a political decision regardless of the trial because of all the media attention leading up to the trial. I don't think anyone was immune from the media coverage. But, the coverage itself produced the verdict and the judge was a player in the drama. He was a willing player.
What the jury never received in the trial was the picture of a self-righteous gunman that was intent on killing anyone in his sense of justice. Rittenhouse was a vigilante that killed two men and permanently disabled a third. The arm that was disabled by Rittenhouse was the arm holding the gun and the weapon was never fired regardless of the victim stating he pointed the gun. His arm was disabled and the prosecutor illustrated that clearly to the jury. The actual mechanics of the reality of the victim didn't matter, only intent mattered in deciding if Rittenhouse was defending himself.
There was something the three men had in common. They all attempted to stop a man with a military style weapon from killing. Their actions were heroic, not Rittenhouse's actions. The jury never heard how the two dead men and a man maimed for the rest of his life were heroes and probably did save lives. They never heard that. To the jury those three men were guilty of rioting at the least and quite possibly looting, they were not victims, they were given a punishment they deserved by a man that considered himself a hero.
It matters. That word is used a lot these days, "matters." It matters that Rittenhouse aggrivated the scene in Kenosha. But, the jury never thought for one minute that Rittenhouse was the problem. The problem in Kenosha as the judge saw it was the rioting and looting. There was a curfew and those that died and were maimed or injured broke the law and ignored the curfew. They were bad people. They rioted and looted. They were bad people. The judge decided the bad people were never going to loot or riot again. He sided with the defense for one reason only, because, he was going to teach all those people who broke the curfew a damn good lesson. He was going to make sure that people who loot and riot will never do it again because there are vigilante heros with military style weapons willing to kill them if they try.
Those two men should be alive today. The permanently disabled man should be able to shoot his weapon with his arm today. But, a judge did not uphold that idea of inappropriate killing and maiming and injuring because he wants law and order at the muzzle of a gun. That is what happened. Those three men all had the same reaction to Rittenhouse and his military style weapon, they thought he was going to kill and that weapon kills a lot of people within seconds. They were not attacking other people. They assaulted Rittenhouse and only Rittenhouse because he posed a danger to human life.
Judge Bruce Schroder is a human rights abuser and does not deserve to sit the bench in the United States of America.
