Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial is going extremely well for him, if recent behavior by the corporate press is any indication.
Liberal journalists, still fondly reminiscent of the civil unrest that swept the country last summer, view the 18-year-old Illinoisan as a murderer who ruined “mostly peaceful” protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They want him to go to prison.
Having already baselessly branded Rittenhouse a white supremacist terrorist, certain journalists and pundits have moved on to questioning whether the judge in the case, Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder, is on the up and up.
“The judge is CLEARLY BIASED!!!!!!” MSNBC host Tiffany Cross tweeted Wednesday.
Anything to undermine the public’s confidence in the court’s handling of the case.
Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three white protesters last year during the Black Lives Matter riots in Kenosha. He claims he went to Kenosha with his rifle to protect local businesses from looters. He also claims he shot the three men in self-defense. The prosecution’s case against Rittenhouse has gone very poorly. At this rate, it seems increasingly likely there may be a mistrial, if not an outright acquittal.
The increasing likelihood that Rittenhouse won’t do hard time for murder is irritating the pundit class this week, with many of them scrambling to find fault with not just Rittenhouse and the U.S. justice system, but also with Schroeder.
Cross continued, addressing a question to MSNBC contributor and Nation correspondent Elie Mystal, saying, “Honestly, [Elie], how can this judge be removed?”
Answered Mystal, “Realistically, he can’t be. He’s elected. Even if he’s disciplined later by the state, which he won’t be, there’s nothing for it for this trial. And if he gets off, he can’t be retried because of double jeopardy. So, like I said two weeks ago, Rittenhouse is going to walk.”
The Washington Post likewise questioned Schroeder’s suitability for the trial.
“As Kyle Rittenhouse trial nears end, judge’s decisions from the bench come under scrutiny,” the paper declared in a headline on Wednesday.
The “scrutiny,” by the way, comes from several Wisconsin legal experts, none of whom question Schroeder’s character or legal acumen.
“In Kenosha,” the report reads, “Schroeder has won support from conservative AM radio hosts and callers, who have praised his decisions, his manner and his willingness to go after critics in the media.”
It adds, “But the judge’s rulings have alarmed the small group of racial justice advocates who have gathered outside the courthouse during the trial. Primarily they cite Schroeder’s ban on the word ‘victims’ as the cause of their concern.”
The New York Times, meanwhile, dropped an opposition research file on the judge Wednesday, reporting he is, “the longest-serving circuit court judge in Wisconsin. He has acknowledged that some topics raised in pretrial hearings are new to him, and said that until this case, he hadn’t heard of the Proud Boys, which had offered to support Rittenhouse.”
None of this is germane to the question of whether Rittenhouse is guilty of murder. It does nothing to bring readers closer to the truth of what happened that night in Kenosha. It does, however, erode trust in Schroeder’s stewardship of the trial.
This is the line — that the judge cannot be trusted to handle the case fairly because he has problematic personal and political beliefs — that members of the press have been experimenting with for some time now. As Mystal alluded to in his answer to Cross, he has already questioned whether Schroeder can be trusted to rule fairly and impartially on the case. Unsurprisingly, Mystal alleges he cannot be.
“Even if Rittenhouse somehow draws an impartial jury, he already appears to have landed a very partial judge,” reads the subhead to an Oct. 27 commentary article Mystal authored for the Nation.
As certain media commentators have undercut confidence in Schroeder’s legal credentials, others have concocted racial hypotheticals to whip public sentiment against a possible favorable ruling for Rittenhouse.
“How would Fox News react if a black teenager killed two people and then explained that he got the gun illegally because it ‘looked cool’?” CNN’s Keith Boykin asked this week.
Asked Mother Jones, “How would the law look differently upon Rittenhouse if he were black?”
Should all else fail, they can always stick with their baseless contention that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist domestic terrorist. They’ve been banging on this drum for several months now.
Anything to undermine the public’s confidence in what appears to be the increasingly likely outcome of this trial.
