?BREAKING NEW MOTION: Kenosha prosecutors WITHELD VIDEO EVIDENCE from Kyle Rittenhouse Defense Team pic.twitter.com/pqk86hhqqu
— Jack Poso ?? (@JackPosobiec) November 17, 2021
Prosecutors in the Kenosha shooter trial withheld evidence from the defense that was ‘at the center of their case,’ only sharing the high-definition drone video footage on which they have hung their prosecution after the trial had concluded, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger played the enhanced drone footage to the jury during his closing statements and claimed that it showed Rittenhouse ‘pointing his gun’ at people – an assertion that opened the door to the state claiming Rittenhouse provoked the violence of the night of August 25, 2020.
Now, in the motion obtained by DailyMail.com, Rittenhouse’s defense insist that the state only shared it with the defense after evidence had closed on Saturday November 13.
The prosecution cannot do that.
It’s a violation of the law.
If Kyle is not acquitted this is absolutely grounds for a mistrial.
Given previous fuckery by the prosecutors, I doubt it would be anything short of mistrial with prejudice, followed by civil suits against them and disciplinary action by the Wisconsin Bar.
Prosecutorial misconduct like that seems to be very common. I can’t think of any consequences that have ever resulted in the cases I’ve heard of.
They also knew who “jump-kick guy” is and didn’t tell the defense.
The “Innocence Project” should investigate every case these two clowns ever prosecuted. I’m sure they did this before.
Kyle is the wrong political bent for the “Innocence Project” to get involved with. Sadly. Yes, they do good work, but they are rather biased towards who they work for.
Misconduct should get the same penalty they are trying to get for the defendant
The manual for the software used to “enhance” the prosecution’s key video still specifically says enlargement and enhancements are for investigative use only, not for evidence.
Did the Technician Armstrong lie on the witness stand?
Or did he just conveniently forget to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Or did he never bother to Read the F***ing Manual?
If he actually attended any training, you can bet the “Not Used for Court Evidence” was front and center of the training. If there were any written tests used in the training, a smart forensic software tool company would make sure that was covered. The corporate lawyers should demand it.
I do not know. My money is on incompetence, not malice (he is a government employee after all).
The judge should order Armstrong back and ask him these very questions.
Given all the other instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case, I’m not at all willing to assume incompetence as you did.
He struck me as the forensic equivalent of a script monkey. Someone taught him to use the software, but he had no idea what it was doing and how it works. While it would have gone WAY over the heads of the jury and judge, a bit of probing would have made it clear.
“Filling in the pixels requires new information. Where does it come from?”
“Was that information in the original frame/photo?”
“Can the interpolation algorithm find information that was not in the original photo?”
“The image was expanded 40% [for example]; that means more than half the pixels in the image were created by the algorithm, is that correct?”
“Your Honor, the expert witness has admitted more than half the image is guesswork by an algorithm he had no hand in creating, and which he cannot describe. It should not be permitted as evidence.”
I watched that part of the trail. That’s pretty much how it played out, except of the money shot at the end.
I watched it, too. I don’t recall the defense making a point of how much of the image was fabrication.
Apparently, about a half hour ago the Defense brought up that the manual for the software used to enhance the video, which is the crux of the provocation argument, specifically says that the enhancement they used is NOT TO BE USED IN COURT.
And when the Judge asked Binger if that was true, he responded that the software manual isn’t in evidence and can’t be referenced.
That response from Binger is profoundly immature, and reeks of a desperate man-child using any excuse to stonewall and obfuscate. Then again, it’s par for the course from him for this whole trial.
Did the forensic image specialist, Armstrong, ever state which processing application his office uses/used? I don’t recall.
If not, is there any reason to think the prosecution doesn’t know the answer? Or that they “didn’t find it relevant enough to share” with the defense? Or that the defense, had they known, wouldn’t have looked up the software and user manual to find its limitations (and disclaimers)?
(For that matter, is there any reason to accept at face value the prosecution’s insistence that they didn’t get that drone video until that Friday? Pretty convenient, if I may say….)
Not that it should matter. ANY image processing software — approved for forensic analysis or not — should carry the same disclaimer, if for no other reason than the process of digital magnification (read: magnification of an image far beyond the resolution capabilities of the camera that recorded it) adds “artifacts” — information not present in the original image or scene. As the defense tried to impress on the jury, it can’t not do that; one cannot take a 120×80 snippet and “blow it up” to 1200×800 without the software filling in 99% of it by some unknown and uncontrolled proprietary process. Literally 99%; the pixels from the original only account for 1% of that “enhanced” image, and the rest were guessed.
Thus, it’s 99% B.S., should not be used as evidence in court, and the user manual should say that no matter which application they use. Even if it doesn’t, its evidentiary value is questionable at best.
When software is used to do any handling of evidence, defense should insist on the lead designer of that software to testify as a prerequisite to the evidence being admitted.
This could get interesting given that all images you see nowadays have been processed by software. And all movie files, all cellphone stills, and nearly all other camera stills (excluding some rare “raw” images from professional cameras) are processed by compression software that (a) is nearly impossible to describe accurately and (b) ALWAYS produces compression artifacts. So every photo you see contains pixels not found in the original — because every photo has been manipulated. This, by the way, is why such processing isn’t considered acceptable for medical imagery — no way to tell if that little blob is cancer or a JPEG compression artifact.
I think that the judge is letting the jury deliberate and try to come to a verdict. The possibly true story of the jury being 10-2 with the two holdouts worrying about doxxing and mob retribution make me believe the judge wants this to be decided by the jury if at all possible.
If the jury is still hung, and if there is a mistrial? I think the judge grants the mistrial with PREJUDICE, meaning Kyle goes free and cannot be retried in state court.
My only concern is that the F. Joe Biden / Merrick Garland DOJ will arrest Kyle and subject him to a trial on “Deprivation of Civil Rights” of the three or four scumbags.
The judge has shown that he has the utmost respect for the jury’s role as the finder of fact, and is leaving a lot up to them.
Unfortunately (and IANAL), maybe a bit too much.
That video/image that “shows provocation” probably shouldn’t have been allowed. Multiple reasons, including: the amount of the “enhanced” image that was fabricated by a computer, through a process the technician is unable to adequately explain; the fact that same technician did NOT do a side-by-side comparison to ensure the “enhanced” image was a “true and faithful” representation of the original; and the fact this image and the “provocation” narrative were both introduced at the 11th hour, AFTER the prosecution rested their case.
And that’s not addressing the quality of the image itself, which is so grainy that I couldn’t tell which blob was supposed to be Rittenhouse, let alone see his rifle, let alone see how he was holding it.
Overall (and again, IANAL), it doesn’t seem to me to meet evidentiary standards. But the judge decided to let the jury weigh its value. Fortunately, it seems most if not all of them found it unconvincing.
I guess I’m too cynical, I am afraid not only will there not be a mistrial but the poor kid is going to get crushed by guilty verdicts, almost certainly due to the feral leftist mob intimidating them. I really hope I’m wrong.
Guilty on all charges. It is the only outcome.
I want to be wrong but I know I’m not.
Nah. Mistrial. There are currently two hold-outs on the jury who are worried about the mob. They wouldn’t be worried if the other 10 wanted to convict, ergo it stands to reason those other 10 would vote to acquit.
Defense has filed a motion for a mistrial with prejudice. I give it about 50/50 the judge grants it if the jury remains deadlocked. (The judge reads like he’d rather the jury acquit than step in himself.)
Personally, I’m kind of surprised — pleasantly — that 10 jurors seem willing to acquit based on the evidence, even with the mob outside.
Perhaps they are relying on the fact that WI is a Shall Issue state.
It’s really a shame that he’s going to be found guilty on all charges.