The Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Wisconsin has been delayed again because of technology problems, this time because prosecutors sent the defense a drone video via email. This is after arguments about pinch-to-zoom and the judge trying to use the features on his phone.
Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three men and killing two of them during a protest last year. The motion for a mistrial is focused on when defense attorneys received a copy of a video showing the shootings that was shown to the jury in open court.
Rittenhouse's lawyers say they only received a copy of the drone video on November 5th, after the trial started, and that the file they received was just 3.6MB. The video provided to the defense was not as clear as the one kept by the state.
The video file was obtained directly from the operator of the drone, and it was aired on The Tucker Carlson Show on Fox News within days of the shooting, as well as a lower-quality version.
It appears that the file was compressed when you went from an Apple device to an Android one. We didn't know that this would happen.
The individual who took the footage came to investigators after the trial started and transferred a higher-quality version of the video to a detective via AirDrop. After the detective brought the video to court, the prosecution told defense attorneys that they had obtained a better quality version of the video. Natalie Wisco, Rittenhouse's attorney, received a copy of the email from the detective and transferred it to her laptop.
The assistant district attorney told the court that going from an apple device to an acerbic device compressed the file. We gave the full file to Ms. Wisco, and it was displayed for four days for the jury to see. The prosecution did not know that the version she received was of lower quality until Wisco showed her the file on her defense laptop.
The defense attorney describes getting a renamed.mov file in a format that sounds exactly like an Apple Mail-app compressed video from an iPhone user. The defense was able to get the full-resolution video file after sending an attorney to collect it.
Jessa Nicholson Goetz, a Wisconsin defense attorney, tells The Verge that it is not normal that video or other electronic evidence is dropped in the middle of a trial. That is atypical.
According to Goetz, Wisconsin law says that any evidence that the state intends to use at trial must be disclosed at a reasonable time before trial. Video evidence is handled by prosecutors and courts in Wisconsin. Most squad cars in the state are equipped with video that turns on automatically if the emergency lights are on. Goetz says that all of the videos are provided via flash drive or CD-ROM/DVD. I have never seen a lower quality version of the video.
According to Goetz, the procedures for handling evidence in this case seem so sloppy because the rules for transferring files back and forth from one court to another are different from county to county.
The case would have been prevented from being tried again if Rittenhouse had requested a mis trial. The judge hasn't ruled on the motion yet, even as the jury watches the video, because it has dropped the prejudice from the request. According to NBC 5 News, the issue will require testimony from an expert witness.
