Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Howard Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, Illinois, United States attended an online court hearing on September 25, 2020 from a juvenile detention facility in Lake County, Illinois where he has been held without bail since his arrest in Antioch on August 26, 2020. He was wearing a gray face mask and a black sweatshirt.

The hearing took place at the Lake County Circuit Court. John Pierce is one of the lawyers representing Rittenhouse, who is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the killing of white Black Lives Matter protesters Anthony M. Huber and Joseph D. Rosenbaum in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA and attempted intentional homicide in the wounding of Gaige Paul Grosskreutz, 26.

As per Kenosha prosecutors’ request, Rittenhouse should be transferred from Illinois to Wisconsin to face charges. Pierce told Judge Paul Novak that he planned to fight the request.

“We intend to challenge extradition by writ of habeas corpus,” Daily Mail quoted Pierce as saying. Novak granted Pierce two weeks to prepare his arguments challenging Rittenhouse’s extradition and gave the defense 14 days to review papers and file pleadings before the next hearing scheduled on October 9, 2020.

Since the identity question appears to have been resolved, Rittenhouse is expected to be extradited, Chicago attorney Stephen Komie told the Chicago Tribune. Elgin attorney Brian Mirandola also told the publication that defendants fighting extradition are going to lose “99.9 percent of the time.”

If convicted of first-degree homicide, Rittenhouse will be sentenced to a mandatory life in prison sentence. He is also charged with underage firearm possession for wielding a semi-automatic rifle, which is a misdemeanor.

On August 25, 2020, Rittenhouse traveled from his home in Antioch to Kenosha where Black Lives Matter protesters were demanding justice for Jacob Blake, 29, who was shot in the back at least eight times by Kenosha Police Department officer Rusten Sheskey, 31. Wearing a green T-shirt, a backward baseball cap, blue gloves, dark blue jeans and brown shoes, Rittenhouse carried a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle, which belonged to a friend from Wisconsin.

Rittenhouse opened fire near Car Source, a car dealership at the northwest corner of 63rd St. and Sheridan Road in Kenosha, which killed Huber and Rosenbaum and wounded Grosskreutz. Pierce told CNN that it was “classic self-defense.”