WATCH: Judge Explains Why He Had Rittenhouse Pick His Jurors Out of a Lottery Box

Judge Bruce Schroeder offered an explanation why he had defendant Kyle Rittenhouse select the jurors out of a lottery, and condemned media coverage of the trial.

Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and first-degree attempted intentional homicide for his alleged actions in Kenosha, WI, the evening of August 25, 2020, when he shot three people, two of them fatally, amid riots that broke out during the protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse has claimed self-defense.

Out of the eighteen jurors who watched the entire trial, twelve were selected to deliberate on Rittenhouse’s fate, while the other six remain as alternates. Rittenhouse himself selected the jurors in a lottery by drawing six juror numbers from a tumbler, and those six were designated the alternate jurors. The decision to select the jury with a random drawing struck some observers as odd, and Schroeder offered an explanation of his decision as he addressed the court on a variety of matters, including a jury request to review video evidence presented during the trial.

In the video footage aired live on CNN, Schroeder was shown explaining a past trial when he had had a court employee do the selecting of the juror names and “there was nothing wrong with it,” but there had been “bad optics” from that, so since then he had had “an almost universal policy of having the defendant do the [jury lottery] picks.”

“It had nothing to do with anybody’s race or anything like that, and I never had a complaint about it before,” said Schroeder. “In fact, I haven’t had a complaint about it here. But some people seem to be dissatisfied with that, and people who want to undermine the result of the trial. So that’s today’s statement on that subject.”

“Your honor, it’s why I do my best to avoid reading anything anybody is writing out there about this case,” replied prosecutor Thomas Binger, “because we know what happens in here, they don’t.”

Schroeder laughed at Binger’s remarks, and said he didn’t always “have that luxury” to avoid reading about the trial, and then lambasted the “shameful” media coverage, saying that the prosecutors and defense attorneys were “five very reputable, competent attorneys that I’ve practiced with for years.”

According to Schroeder, the problems with the media coverage were caused partly by their “grossly irresponsible handling” of what was happening in the trial.

“I will tell you this,” the judge concluded. “I’m going to think long and hard about a live television trial again, next time. I’ve always been a firm believer because I think people want to see what’s going on, but when I see what’s being done, it’s really quite frightening. Frightening, that’s the right word for it.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.