Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi told Judge Bruce Schroeder on Wednesday afternoon that the defense will ask for a mistrial without prejudice over a dispute about a drone video, meaning that the state would be able to retry the case.
Kyle Rittenhouse’s attorneys originally motioned for a mistrial with prejudice on Monday, arguing that the “prosecution gave the defense a compressed version of the video” that “was not as clear as the video kept by the state.”
Assistant District Attorney James Kraus attributed the difference in videos to a technological glitch, saying that the video was compressed because it was transferred from an iPhone to an Android phone.
Regardless, the defense said that they have spoken with Rittenhouse and will be asking for a mistrial because they would have approached the trial differently if they had the higher-quality video.
“We didn’t have the quality of evidence that the state had until the case had been closed,” Chirafisi told the judge.
“To not get that until the evidence has been closed, that doesn’t strike me as fair,” he continued. “This is a potential life sentence here.”
Judge Schroeder did not immediately rule on the mistrial request.
Meanwhile, the jury has requested to see the drone video. The prosecution and defense are currently discussing how the video should be played for the jury.
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8 Responses
Don’t forget the idiot prosecutor that aimed a rifle at the jury with his trigger on the finger.
The prosecutor knew exactly what he was doing, and I would have done the same. He meant to show the jurors the degree of terror Rittenhouse caused by pointing the gun at people, and that when you point a gun at people, it’s natural for them to panic. The point was that it was Rittenhouse that elicited the reactions he claims that he claimed were threatening. Second, there was a plastic band on the trigger. It is impossible to pull the trigger when that band is there.
Lostspark:
That was a mistake. He meant to aim it at himself.
I don’t see any meaningful differences between the videos
Makes you wonder how much of a prosecutor’s job depends on their ability to bully the accused into a plea deal as opposed to building a proper case and prosecuting it properly.
YWN needs to be really careful with their grammar especially when they leave out a crucial word in a sentence: “the defense will ask for a mistrial without prejudice over a dispute about a drone video, meaning that the state would be able to retry the case. “
Did you mean to write “the state would NOT be able to retry the case”? That’s a pretty big difference no?
> Barzilai
> “when you point a gun at people, it’s natural for them to panic.”
Yep – the normal person runs AWAY screaming and in terror. Here, they ran AT HIM screaming and threatening him. But in any case, there is no evidence that Kyle pointed his gun before he was attacked (the still photo taken from a video and manipulated by software is not evidence and is very different from a magnifying glass used on a real photo in as much the software actually adds pixels to the photo to “fill in” blanks).
And as an aside to your “plastic band”, do you think plastic bands don’t break or come lose?
> BaltimoreMaven
> “I don’t see any meaningful differences between the videos”
I don’t know what the video here is, but on youtube the quality difference between the two videos is absolutely obvious. Search “Kyle Rittenhouse HD Version of Drone Footage Prosecution HID from Defense – Motion for Mistrial”. So I don’t know which is the “real” comparison – this or the youtube version.
But in any case, the defense made a second claim as well – that the LENGTH of the video was not the same – meaning that the defense did not receive the entire video that the prosecution had.