Rittenhouse’s Fate Goes to the Jury

Last week I said that the Kyle Rittenhouse trial wasn’t going well for the prosecution. Since then, Rittenhouse testified in his own defense without any serious missteps, and a minor gun charge against him was dismissed. His self-defense arguments are still generally strong.

But I wouldn’t bet on a full acquittal with complete confidence. There’s a wide buffet of options available to the jury if it wants to convict, a single dissenter can hang the jury and set the stage for a retrial, and the prosecution has made a late-in-the-game effort to advance a theory that Rittenhouse provoked his first assailant and thus forfeited his privilege of self-defense.