'Piece of theater': Legal experts weigh in on Kyle Rittenhouse’s seating jurors deciding his fate by lottery

Kyle Rittenhouse could spend the next several decades of his life behind bars or soon walk free from a Wisconsin courthouse.

And pieces of paper he grabbed at random with his right hand will have played a major role in the life-turning outcome.

In an "interesting piece of theater" in his high-profile trial, Rittenhouse was directed Tuesday to blindly pick the seven women and five men who will decide whether he is criminally responsible for killing two men during protests last year over the police shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha.

Eighteen prospective jurors sat through two weeks of testimony and arguments before Rittenhouse was told to pick six numbers out of a tumbler. The six numbers corresponded to jurors who were then stricken from the panel, resulting in the 12 who were sent into deliberations.

Wisconsin courts regularly seat more jurors than necessary before extras are randomly struck at the end of trials to get down to 12 for deliberations, lawyers said Tuesday.