Rittenhouse Juror Asks to Take Instructions Home After Third Day Without Verdict

A juror asked Judge Bruce Schroeder of the Kenosha County Court if she could take the jury instructions home with her on Thursday evening, after the jury deliberated for a third full day without reaching a verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case.

Rittenhouse faces five counts — two of murder, one of attempted murder, and two of reckless endangerment. Unlike the second day, when the jury asked to review video evidence, the jury spent the entire day deliberating with each other.

After the juror asked to take the instructions home, the defense attorneys shook their heads, and Judge Schroeder paused before answering: “Yes, but obviously you can’t talk to anybody about them.”

The deliberations resume Friday at 9:00 a.m. Central Standard Time.

Judge Schroeder also told the six alternate jurors to return on Friday, expressing regret that deliberations had taken as long as they had thus far: “I know that we’re over our time, that I talked about initially.”

After they left, the judge acknowledged that the defense had not wanted him to agree. Defense attorney Mark Richards said that he had been afraid the jurors would start consulting dictionaries — “they start defining words, and things like that” — and conducting “outside research.”

Prosecutor Thomas Binger chimed in that he did not think they should be allowed to take their notes home. The judge said he would allow notes that had been taken on the sheets on which the instructions themselves were printed.

Judge Schroeder also noted that legal experts across the country had agreed with him that the jury instructions were very confusing.

Though the jury spent the day focused on deliberations, there was drama in the courtroom Thursday morning, as the judge kicked MSNBC out of the courthouse for the remainder of the trial after one of its reporters allegedly followed the jury bus in his car the day before.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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