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The jurors in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse have concluded their second day of deliberations without reaching a verdict.
Jurors deliberated for roughly 7.5 hours on Wednesday after deliberating for roughly 8.5 hours on Tuesday.
The jury requested to review two videos in evidence on Wednesday:
The videos were placed on a thumb drive and presented to the jurors on what the judge described as a “sanitized” laptop. Jurors viewed those videos in the jury room.
The jury was subsequently brought into the courtroom to view drone video footage that they had requested to review earlier. No one but the jury was present in the courtroom when they viewed that footage. They spent about 45 minutes inside before leaving.
The 12 juror panel is expected to resume deliberating at 10 a.m. ET Thursday.
Jurors in the case are not being sequestered during deliberations.
Jurors deliberating the fate of Kyle Rittenhouse appeared fatigued at the end of their second day of deliberations without a verdict, according to observations from a courtroom pool reporter.
The reporter added there “were no outward signs of tension among them at the end of their day” which started at 10 a.m. ET.
The 12 juror panel is expected to resume deliberating at 10 a.m. ET Thursday morning.
The jury has left the courtroom, according to a pool reporter. Jurors were inside court for roughly 45 minutes viewing the videos they had requested.
While a full list of the exhibits was not given in court, prosecutors did disclose that the request included FBI surveillance video and drone video showing the moments leading up to the fatal shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum.
Prosecutors requested the jury view the videos in court so they could be seen on a larger screen. After hearing objections from the defense, the judge agreed to grant the request and asked for the courtroom to be cleared.
During the break, defense attorney Mark Richards confirmed to a courtroom pool reporter that the jury has access to view the FBI surveillance video, the full drone video showing the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum, and a version of the drone video edited by the crime lab that shows the incident in various speeds.
Judge Bruce Schroeder brought the jury into the courtroom to view drone video footage that they requested to review earlier.
When he brought in the jurors, the judge informed them that the video was “all cued up” and they could “view the material as much as you like.” He added that they had “complete freedom” and “privacy,” and “could move in closer to the screen” if they like.
While the jury is viewing the video, the judge, attorneys, and Kyle Rittenhouse will not be in the room.
“There will be nobody in here but you twelve jurors. OK, no sitting in my chair,” Schroeder to the jury.
He said that the court staff conducted a search of the room to “check that there aren’t any devices that will pick anything up.”
He told the jury that when they’re done reviewing the video, that they can return to the jury room to continue deliberations.
More detail on the video that the jury is viewing: While a full list of the exhibits was not given in court, prosecutors did disclose that the request included FBI surveillance video and drone video showing the moments leading up to the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum.
Prosecutors requested the jury view the videos in court so they could be seen on a larger screen. After hearing objections from the defense, the judge agreed to grant the request and asked for the courtroom to be cleared.
During the break, defense attorney Mark Richards confirmed to a courtroom pool reporter that the jury has access to view the FBI surveillance video, the full drone video showing the shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum, and a version of the drone video edited by the crime lab that shows the incident in various speeds.
Jurors weighing the fate of Kyle Rittenhouse requested to review two videos in evidence on Wednesday.
Jurors asked to view a livestream video taken by Gaige Grosskreutz moments after Rittenhouse shot Joseph Rosenbaum. In the video, Grosskreutz jogs next to Rittenhouse and asks if he had just shot someone.
Jurors also requested the “BG on The Scene” video. It shows the second incident involving the fatal shooting of Anthony Huber, shooting of Grosskreutz and alleged reckless endangerment of an unknown male.
Jurors also asked for a slowed down version of the video.
Schroeder requested the videos be placed on a thumb drive and presented to the jurors on what he described as a “sanitized” laptop. Jurors will view the videos in the jury room and not in court as attorneys had discussed earlier in the day.
After a break, an attorney returned to the courtroom with a blank laptop containing two videos. It is unclear which two videos of the three that were discussed were placed on the laptop and delivered to the jury.
The jury will be allowed to review the videos they requested as many times as they deem necessary, the judge determined Wednesday.
Schroeder heard arguments from attorneys citing previous cases in which restrictions were placed on how many times jurors were allowed to watch video evidence during deliberations.
“It seems to me this is a pursuit of truth and you should take the course that you think will lead you there,” the judge said, when discussing the request from the jury.
During a discussion in court this afternoon, prosecutors addressed a motion to dismiss the case by the defense, calling it “factually inaccurate.”
What is this about: In a motion to dismiss the case filed earlier this week, the defense claimed that, “On November 5, 2021, the fifth day of trial on this case, the prosecution turned over to the defense footage of drone video which captured some of the incident from August 25, 2020. The problem is, the prosecution gave the defense a compressed version of the video.”
“What that means is the video provided to the defense was not as clear as the video kept by the state,” the motion continued.
The defense claimed that the version they were given “was only 3.6 megabytes, while the state had a higher resolution version that was 11.2 megabytes.”
Prosecutor James Kraus said that when they turned over the video to the defense, they were unable to provide the video via airdrop so the file was emailed as an attachment to the defense. Kraus said the video was inadvertently compressed when it was sent to the defense, possibly due to a software issue going from an Apple phone to an Android phone. He said, “we did not know that this would occur.”
The prosecutor said that “we cannot be held responsible” for “something that happened in the transfer that we had no knowledge of.”
“We didn’t compress anything, we didn’t change anything,” Kraus said.
Defense attorney Natalie Wisco, however, said the video she was sent had a different file name than the original one and suggested the prosecution was not telling the truth.
Kraus said the suggestion that the prosecution would “sabotage” the video was “preposterous.”
Judge Bruce Schroeder said that he would like to “get somebody to explain this.” He said he planned to call in expert testimony and take testimony under oath from attorneys to get to the bottom of the episode.
While addressing a question from the jury on Wednesday, Judge Bruce Schroeder defended his practice of allowing Kyle Rittenhouse to randomly draw the numbers from a lottery tumbler of who would become the alternate jurors, prior to the start of deliberations.
“I admit that I don’t know that there’s a large number of courts that do that, maybe not any,” he said.
Eighteen jurors sat through the entirety of the two-week trial. On Tuesday morning, Rittenhouse himself selected six juror numbers out of a tumbler in a random drawing. Those six are not participating in jury deliberations.
Schroeder said he has handled alternates this way since a case in Racine about 20 years ago, when the court clerk drew the numbers and the only Black juror was removed from a case involving a Black defendant.
“Ever since that case, I’ve had an almost universal policy of having the defendant do the things, and that’s had nothing to do with anybody’s race or anything like that, and I never had a complaint about it before,” he explained.
“I think people feel better when they have control,” said Schroeder.
The judge also criticized media coverage of the trial and said he plans “to think long and hard” about live television of the trial next time despite being a firm believer that the public should be able to see what’s going on.
The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial started deliberating around 10 a.m. ET this morning. They’ve been at the courthouse now for a little over three and a half hours.
This is the second day the jury — made up of five men and seven women — has deliberated. They were dismissed yesterday after more than eight hours: Deliberations started at 10:15 a.m. ET Tuesday, and Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the jurors for the evening at 6:50 p.m. ET. The court did not specify how long the jurors took for their lunch break.
The jurors are considering five felony charges against Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people and shot another during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer.
Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder has received two more questions from jurors, according to a pool reporter in court. It is unclear if the questions are procedural in nature.
The judge has left the bench and gone back into his chambers.
The attorneys are currently in the courtroom and setting up monitors, according to the pool reporter.
Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder briefly addressed what he called “misinformation” in the case while answering a question from jurors on Wednesday morning.
Schroeder told the court he saw a local report that questioned why he had not yet ruled on a defense motion for a mistrial with prejudice, which was filed on Monday in the case.
“So I’m somewhat astounded,” Schroeder added. “It’s just a shame irresponsible statements are being made.”
Judge Bruce Schroeder received a question this morning from the jury asking about the process for reviewing some of the video evidence in the case.
“Do we view videos in private or in courtroom?” Schroeder said, reading the question from the jurors.
The jurors did not specify which videos they wanted to view.
Attorneys agreed that the video needs to be viewed in court. However, defense attorneys objected to the jury viewing drone video showing the fatal shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum.
“We’re going to now have, the jury will come down to the courtroom. And everybody will be shooed out of here as they should be. I’m not even sure, we’re going to need to review the procedure that has been outlined. But they get to watch it once, that is what the rule is?” Schroeder asked attorneys.
“I think they should be allowed to view as often as they want to view it,” prosecutor Thomas Binger responded.
Defense attorneys expressed concern about jurors viewing videos multiple times.
“For now, I will answer ‘do we view the videos in private or the courtroom,’ and the answer will be in the courtroom,” Schroeder said.
Prosecutors along with defense attorneys and Kyle Rittenhouse were present in court during the discussion. The jury was not present.
The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse has been deliberating for about two hours so far today. They started around 10 a.m. ET this morning.
This is the second day the jury — made up of five men and seven women — has deliberated. They were dismissed yesterday after more than eight hours: Deliberations started at 10:15 a.m. ET Tuesday, and Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the jurors for the evening at 6:50 p.m. ET. The court did not specify how long the jurors took for their lunch break.
The jurors are considering five felony charges against Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people and shot another during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer.
The defense’s case was highlighted by the decision to put Kyle Rittenhouse on the stand to testify on his own behalf on Nov. 10.
CNN analyst Jeniffer Rodgers noted that a defendant testifying at trial is rare.
“When a defendant testifies, it tends to overshadow everything else. It happens pretty rarely actually. When it does, that’s what everyone remembers and it does tend to be what everything turns on,” Rodgers said.
The former federal prosecutor said that her assessment was that Rittenhouse was “actually a very good witness” and she thinks his testimony might help him with the jury.
Here’s a recap of some of what Rittenhouse said during his testimony at the trial:
During day 1 of jury deliberations in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial on Tuesday, the jurors made two requests for additional copies of the jury instructions.
The first request asked the court to provide 11 additional copies of the first six pages of the jury instructions so that each of the 12 jurors could have their own copy.
Pages 2 through 3 of the jury instructions focus on the self-defense and provocation instructions. Page 4 of the jury instructions focuses on crimes requiring intent to kill. Pages 5 and 6 focus on the first count of first-degree reckless homicide for the fatal shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum.
Later on Tuesday afternoon, the jury made a second request for additional copies of pages 7 to 36 of the jury instructions, which is the total number of pages in the instructions.
Former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers said Wednesday on CNN that it is common practice for each juror to have their own set of instructions to refer to during the deliberations.
She added that she was “surprised” Judge Bruce Schroeder didn’t initially provide a copy of the instructions for each juror “especially because he kind of botched the reading of the instructions.”
Some more context: During the final day of the trial on Monday, Judge Schroeder read the 36 pages of instructions to the jury prior to them hearing closing arguments. The judge’s reading took over an hour due to several stops and restarts where the parties continued to debate what was in the instructions.
Jurors began deliberating at 10:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday and resumed their work on Wednesday morning.
The jurors in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse resumed deliberations this morning, according to a pool reporter in court.
The panel of five men and seven women deliberated for roughly 8.5 hours on Tuesday.
The court did not specify what time the jury resumed deliberating today.
Defense attorneys filed a motion for mistrial with prejudice in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse on Monday, accusing the state of intentional “prosecutorial overreach.”
The seven-page defense motion, filed on Monday, was provided to CNN by the court clerk this morning.
The motion points to a testy exchange between Judge Bruce Schroeder and Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger over his line of questioning as Rittenhouse testified last week, which the judge had warned could be a violation of Rittenhouse’s rights under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution to remain silent.
In court on Wednesday, the judge initially called the discussion of the defendant’s silence a “grave constitutional violation,” but he later said it was “right on the borderline.”
Defense attorneys also pointed to a second incident in their motion from Wednesday, in which Schroeder admonished the prosecutor about an incident two weeks before the shootings that the judge said would not be permitted into evidence.
CNN has previously reported that attorneys made the court aware of their intention to file the motion last Wednesday following the cross-examination of Rittenhouse. A mistrial with prejudice would mean there would be no chance for a retrial.
The motion also resurfaces a heated exchange between attorneys on Friday over a drone video, in which the state alleged Rittenhouse can be seen raising and pointing his weapon at a man near Joseph Rosenbaum. The state says this is what provoked Rosenbaum to start chasing Rittenhouse
Defense attorneys say in their motion that they were given a compressed version of the drone video that was only 3.6MB, while the state had a higher resolution version that was 11.2MB. Schroeder told attorneys Friday he would let the jury decide on the video.
Prosecutors have not filed a response and Schroeder told attorneys he would take the intent to file the mistrial motion under advisement last week.
The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse case is set to convene at 10 a.m. ET today for a second day of deliberations.
A group of 20 people — 11 women and nine men — were initially selected to serve on the jury on November 1 from a group of 179 prospective jurors. The jury selection consisted of just one day of voir dire in court without the use of background questionnaires.
Two people were dismissed from the jury during the course of the trial. One juror, a middle-aged man, was dismissed for telling a joke to a deputy about the police shooting of Blake, an incident that earned a rebuke from the judge. Another juror, a pregnant woman, was dismissed after experiencing discomfort and requesting to be dismissed, the judge said.
Eighteen jurors thus sat through the entirety of the two-week trial. On Tuesday morning, Rittenhouse himself selected six juror numbers out of a tumbler in a random drawing. Those six will not participate in jury deliberations.
The remaining 12 jurors are made up of five men and seven women, according to a pool reporter in court. The jurors who were selected in the random drawing will serve as alternates. They were asked to remain at the courthouse while the jury deliberates the case.
Day two of jury deliberations will begin soon in the Kyle Rittenhouse case.
Yesterday, deliberations started at 10:15 a.m. ET, and Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the jurors for the evening at 6:50 p.m. ET. The court did not specify how long the jurors took for their lunch break.
The jury is due back at the courthouse at 10 a.m. ET today. It’s not clear how long they’ll deliberate today.
The jury will begin deliberating again today in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
While we wait for the jury to assemble at 10 a.m. ET today, here’s a look at the five felony counts against Rittenhouse.
Count 1: First-degree reckless homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
Count 1 states Rittenhouse recklessly caused the death of 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum under circumstances that showed utter disregard for human life.
Wisconsin law allows the use of deadly force only if “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.”
Count 2: First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
Count 2 states Rittenhouse recklessly endangered the safety of Richard McGinniss — a journalist with the conservative Daily Caller — under circumstances that show utter disregard for human life.
Count 3: First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
Count 3 states Rittenhouse recklessly endangered the safety of an unknown male, referred to as “jump kick man” in court, under circumstances that show utter disregard for human life.
The man jumped at Rittenhouse at one point, trying to kick him and the teen opened fire. “I thought if I were to be knocked out, he would have stomped my face in if I didn’t fire,” he said. Rittenhouse fired at the man twice and missed.
Count 4: First-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
Count 4 states Rittenhouse caused the death of 26-year-old Anthony Huber, with intent to kill him. It’s the most serious charge he faces, with a mandatory life sentence. Huber swung his skateboard at Rittenhouse after Rosenbaum was fatally shot.
Prosecutors asked that the jury also be instructed on second-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and second-degree reckless homicide.
Defense attorneys objected to second-degree reckless homicide. The judge said he “embraced” the defense’s argument. But he will likely allow lesser charges of second-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide.
Count 5: Attempted first-degree intentional homicide, use of a weapon
Count 5 states Rittenhouse attempted to cause the death of 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, with intent to kill him.
After shooting Huber, Rittenhouse testified, he saw Grosskreutz lunge at him and point a pistol at his head. Rittenhouse shot him, he testified. Grosskreutz was wounded.
Grosskreutz testified he pulled out his own firearm because he believed Rittenhouse was an active shooter.
Prosecutors asked for lesser charges of attempted second-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree reckless endangerment. Schroeder said he was inclined to agree with the prosecution.
Remember: A misdemeanor weapons charge was dismissed by the judge as proceedings opened Monday morning.
