Kyle Rittenhouse trial: When could Kenosha, Wisconsin jury return a verdict?

May 30, 2024

CHICAGO (WLS) — What Kyle Rittenhouse did played out in public. His trial was conducted on television. The fate of Kyle Rittenhouse will be determined behind closed doors, by jurors who will make up their minds on their own and take as much or as little time as they want.

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In the Kenosha County courtroom where Rittenhouse is in a fight for his freedom, a metal raffle drum shows just how random part of our jury system can be.

The old fashioned lottery tumbler holds the names of all 18 jurors who have heard evidence. The judge will chose twelve names from the drum to officially decide the case. The rest will be considered alternates and excused.

So, the question is: what happens when those 12 men and women proceed to the jury room, lock the door and go to work.

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“The only rule for how a jury has to go about its business is that it apply the law which is read to them by the judge to the facts that they’ve heard over the course of the trial. But how they do that, whether they do it in order of counts, whether they jump around with the evidence, whether they spend an hour just chit chatting about things unrelated to the trial, no one can control that they’re in their room left to their own devices to approach it as they see fit,” ABC 7 legal analyst Gil Soffer told the I-Team.

Soffer is a student of juries, having watched and depended on them as a former federal prosecutor, and now a defense lawyer and ABC7’s legal analyst.

But Soffer admits, despite armchair experts claiming to read the legal tea leaves, nobody can dependably forecast how long this process will take, or the outcome.

“Within the jury room, records are not kept about who said what. Certainly there’s no transcript of discussions or proceedings. And when the verdict is read, it will be, if it’s unanimous, as it will have to be, it will be the unanimous verdict of the jury,” said Soffer.

An unwritten rule, perhaps because it is also unreliable, is that juries deliberate one day for every week of trial testimony. But with hours of video to review, emotions high on the witness stand and in the gallery and unusual courtroom scenes, including the actual AR-15 in front of jurors, jurors have a lot to review.

“This jury knows how consequential these matters are. They surely know what might happen on the streets around them depending on their verdict. That would suggest that they’re going to take their time and try to do it right,” said Soffer.

Judges usually try to keep juries happy; allowing them to set deliberation schedules, lunch hours and even whether to keep working through weekends.

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