To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders

Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications

Rittenhouse Defence Demand Full Retrial After Key Evidence 'Error'

Rittenhouse Defence Demand Full Retrial After Key Evidence 'Error'

Kyle Rittenhouse's lawyers are unhappy with the video quality of the vital drone footage and are requesting a retrial.

Anish Vij

Anish Vij

Kyle Rittenhouse's defence has requested a mistrial after an iPhone Mail app compressed key drone video evidence.

The 18-year-old is facing charges after shooting three men and killing two of them last year during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha.

The technical issue follows earlier arguments about what pinch-to-zoom does or does not do, and the judge was struggling with the screenshot features on his Samsung Galaxy S20, as per The Verge.

Rittenhouse's attorneys say they claimed a copy of the drone footage that showed the shootings on November 5th, however, the issue was the 11.2MB video possessed by the state wasn't the one they received, which was a considerably lesser size of 3.6MB.

It was argued that it wasn't until two days before closing arguments began and after the time to turn over evidence had closed when the prosecution turned over the full-resolution video.

Alamy

Assistant District Attorney James Kraus told the court that "going from an iPhone to an Android, it appears, somehow compressed the file [...] we did not know that this would occur.

"We gave what we fully believed was the full file to Ms Wisco [...] it came in without objection and was an exhibit for four days, displayed for the jury on full screen."

Wisconsin defence attorney Jessa Nicholson Goetz told The Verge that "it is not normal that video or other electronic evidence is AirDropped to defence counsel in the middle of a trial.

"That is highly atypical."

Basically, the smaller file size can alter the quality of the video and that's what the teenager's lawyer was arguing.

"What that means is the video provided to the defence was not as clear as the video kept by the state," the motion for mistrial claimed.

Alamy

According to the teenager, the shootings were acts of self-defence after he felt he came under attack during the Summer 2020 protests.

Part of the trial saw Rittenhouse break down as he gave evidence about the moments leading up to him shooting the three men.

He told members of the jury that before he shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, he was threatened twice by the man.

Recalling the moment, Rittenhouse said: "He screamed 'if I catch any of you f*****g alone, I'm going to f*****g kill you'.

"The second time he said 'I'm going to cut your f*****g hearts out and kill you N-words'."

Rittenhouse said he went there to protect property after two nights in which rioters set fires and ransacked businesses.

In his opening statement, Binger described the unrest as 'two of the roughest nights that our community has ever seen', and said outsiders were drawn to Kenosha 'like moths to a flame'.

Yet Mr Binger repeatedly stressed that amid the hundreds of people in Kenosha and the anger and chaos in the streets, 'the only person who killed anyone is the defendant, Kyle Rittenhouse'.

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: iPhone, Kyle Rittenhouse