Alan Dershowitz: Kyle Rittenhouse 'should be acquitted,' sue media for calling him 'vigilante'

Alan Dershowitz, the famed Harvard law professor emeritus, said Kyle Rittenhouse "should be acquitted" of injuring a man and killing two others in Kenosha, Wis., and sue media outlets that are claiming he's guilty of vigilante justice.

"If I were a juror, I would vote that there was reasonable doubt [and] that he did act in self-defense," Dershowitz told Newsmax on Saturday.

"Then he'll bring lawsuits, and that's the way to answer… vigilante justice is what CNN is doing, not what a 17-year-old kid under pressure may have done right or wrong. It's CNN who is involved in vigilante justice. It's The New Yorker that's guilty of vigilante justice."

Dershowitz referenced then-Kentucky high school student Nicholas Sandmann and how he sued and settled with CNN and The Washington Post for defamation as they accused him of being racist following viral videos of an encounter he had with a Native American activist in Washington, D.C.

"The idea is to make the media accountable for deliberate and willful lies," he said.

Dershowitz added that "the left-wing media ... is attacking this judge for trying to be fair. They want an outcome. They want a result and if they don't get their results and you know this seeps through to the jury, and I worry that the jury could be influenced by the fear that if they vote to acquit, they'll be called racist and they'll be attacked."

Rittenhouse, 18, is charged with killing both Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, 27, in Kenosha on Aug. 25, 2020, during riots, and has pleaded not guilty.

Video footage shows Huber and Grosskreutz running after Rittenhouse as he ran towards police after he shot Rosenbaum, The Epoch Times reported. There are several video and photos that show Rittenhouse being hit with a skateboard by Huber. Grosskreutz, who was armed with a handgun, has testified saying he thought Huber was trying to attack Rittenhouse.