Rittenhouse judge goes off on a tangent about his grievances against the media

Judge Bruce Schroeder defended his actions and attacked the media at a hearing on Wednesday after the jury asked an unrelated question about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

Schroeder went off-topic at the hearing to address criticisms he has received in the media.

The judge defended his decision to not allow the people who were shot to be called "victims" because he said it was unfair to Rittenhouse.

"How would you like to be put on trial for a crime and the judge introduced the case to the jury by introducing you as the defendant and the person who's accusing you as the victim?" he asked. "Is it so difficult to use the term 'complaining witness' instead of prejudging what the jury is here to determine?"

He also explained why he allowed the defendant to control the lottery determining which jurors would decide the case.

"I am now reading about how bizarre and unusual it was to have the defendant pick the [juror] numbers out of the tumbler yesterday," Schroeder said. "I would admit that I don't know there's a large number of courts that do that. Maybe not any."

"I do it because of an incident that I had in a case I tried in Racine," he recalled. "I think it was a murder case but I'm not sure. And there was a Black defendant and there were 13 jurors. One of them was Black. And when the clerk -- the clerk, the government official drew the name out of the tumbler, it was a Black, the Black, the only Black."

Since that time, the judge said that he allows the defendants to select alternate jurors so they "feel better."

"We talk about optics nowadays," he said. "That was a bad optic, I thought. I think people feel better when they have control."

Before finishing his rant about the media, Schroeder threatened to remove future trials from live television.

"When I talked about problems with the media when this trial started, we were there in part," he complained, "because of grossly irresponsible handling of what comes out of this trial."

"I'm going to think long and hard again about live television for a trial next time," the judge added. "What's being done is really quite frightening."

Watch the video below.

Rittenhouse judge unloads wild rant about jurors and media after jury asks unrelated questionwww.youtube.com