Rittenhouse Trial To Proceed After Judge Finds Probable Cause for Charges

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old teen accused of killing two protesters in Kenosha in August, will proceed after a judge found probable cause for the case, rejecting a defense attorney’s argument that the state was violating Rittenhouse’s Second Amendment rights. 

In a lengthy pretrial presided over by Judge Loren Keating of Kenosha, the court found probable cause for Rittenhouse to be tried for two accounts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, and the non-felony possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18.  

Rittenhouse’s defense attorney, Mark Richards, argued that the state should dismiss the charge relating to Rittenhouse’s possession of dangerous weapon and one of the charges of reckless endangerment. He argued that there isn’t significant evidence that Rittenhouse ever endangered victim Richard McGinnis on the night of the shooting, and that Rittenhouse never broke the law when he carried an AR-15 in August. 

“The government is trying to seek an impingement of my client’s Second Amendment rights,” Richards said. 

Despite this, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, who represented the state in this case, provided enough evidence that McGinnis was in fact endangered for Judge Keating to agree that the charge should be pursued. Binger also stated that Rittenhouse did break the Wisconsin law that prevents people under 18 from having a firearm, and Keating agreed with this as well.  

“This is exactly why we have this law,” Binger said. “Teenagers shouldn’t be allowed to run around with dangerous weapons.” 

Binger also called Detective Benjamin Antaramian of the Kenosha Police Department to testify about the case, who provided clarification about exactly what happened on the night of the shooting.

In his questioning, Binger attempted to provide evidence that Rittenhouse shot three people on the night of the shooting, and Antaramian stated that there was evidence to support this claim in his testimony.

Richards, on the other hand, used a handful of pictures taken from video in questioning Antaramian in an attempt to prove that Rittenhouse was attacked prior to shooting each one of the three people he allegedly shot on August 25. To this, Antaramian replied that there was evidence that Rittenhouse was attacked at least three times on the night of the shooting, and that one of those attacks was done by someone who is yet to be identified.

However, many of Richards’ questions were met with objections from Binger. He argued that the questions were not relevant to the pretrial, and most of the objections were sustained by Judge Keating, who agreed with Binger sand stated that what Richards was asking Antaramian should be asked in the actual trial.

In addition, throughout the early stages of the pretrial, people argued in the steam of the trial on YouTube about the case until the chat was shut down by the stream’s moderators.

“He’s not the victim, he’s the guy that killed two people,” said Valerie Elyse in the virtual chat.

“If he did not kill those 2 people he would have been killed, its called self defense hunny,” responded Dustin Fredrick. 

This didn’t make a difference, though, as Rittenhouse is set to be arraigned on January 5 at 1 p.m., and his bond terms will not change until then.