Rittenhouse juror dismissal shows risk of bias in big cases

By SARA BURNETT
Associated Press

The juror dismissed from Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial apparently was trying to be funny when he cracked to a court security officer about the shooting of a Black man that set off the protests where Rittenhouse shot three people. When Judge Bruce Schroeder said Thursday that the joke showed bias that “would seriously undermine the outcome” of the Rittenhouse trial, the man objected. He said the joke had nothing to do with the case. The moment captured the bias — sometimes explicit, but often implicit or unconscious — that experts say is especially damaging in criminal proceedings. While the juror in Wisconsin may have vocalized his beliefs, in most cases these biases are difficult or impossible to detect.