Kyle Rittenhouse’s former lawyer predicted weapons charge dismissal a year ago in politically charged case
‘This case should have never been brought,’ John Pierce said
Kyle Rittenhouse’s future went to a 12-person Wisconsin jury Tuesday, in a murder trial whose outcome has local residents bracing for renewed protests and Americans from coast to coast waiting for the verdict on the edge of their seats.
John Pierce, a lawyer who previously represented Rittenhouse but no longer does, said he believes the prosecution has a weak, politically motivated case aimed at making a point rather than serving justice.
“He was legally entitled to have that firearm with him,” he told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “And it’s just clear as day from the evidence, most powerfully from the hundreds of angles of video evidence, that it was absolute perfect self-defense.”
Pierce runs a private law firm named after himself as well as the National Constitutional Law Union, or NCLU — which he describes as “the ACLU but for the rest of us.” He has long argued that the prosecution’s case against Rittenhouse is politically motivated and shouldn’t stand up in court.
“This case should have never been brought,” he said. “In my view, this is blatant prosecutorial misconduct. It’s malicious prosecution.”
And as a result, he said the teen defendant “was defamed by pretty much every media outlet and lots of politicians and celebrities as being mass murderer and a White supremacist, which is ridiculous.”
“In a radio interview that I did on Breitbart just a few days after the shootings, I said that that charge should not have been brought, and that it was going to go away at some point,” he said Tuesday — a day after Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the misdemeanor count against Rittenhouse.
The latter testified during the trial that he had aimed a handgun at Rittenhouse before the teen opened fire — although he said it was unintentional. The moment circulated widely online in photos and videos. Grosskreutz did not have a valid pistol permit at the time.
Rittenhouse’s defense team has said he went there to clean up graffiti, protect small businesses from vandals and looters and to provide medical aid after nights of protests. They maintain that he opened fire only in self-defense — after being attacked by a group of grown men.
Nearby were a scattering of plywood boards covering the windows of a few neighboring storefronts along a stretch of several blocks near the city’s courthouse where the shootings occurred. “We’ve relocated,” some signs reads. Others had messages calling for healing for Kenosha.
I’m here to support Kyle Rittenhouse, because I’m a constitutionalist,” one protester, Maurice Jeff, told Fox News Digital outside the courthouse after verbally clashing with pro-conviction demonstrators. “I believe that he defended himself.”
“I believe all this,” he added, gesturing toward Rittenhouse’s critics, “is a popular opinion.”
The public is expected to receive about an hour’s notice from when the jury reaches a decision to the verdict’s announcement.
