LIVE: Rittenhouse Trial Day 8
Dr. John Black, the defense use-of-force expert, is expected to be the day’s first witness
Welcome back to our ongoing live coverage of the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle is charged with a variety of felonies, including first-degree murder, for shooting three men, two fatally, as well as for alleged reckless conduct on the night of August 25, 2020, in riot-torn Kenosha WI.
You can find our commentary and analysis of yesterday’s trial proceedings here: Rittenhouse Trial Day 7: Kyle Survives Abusive Cross-Examination
As usual, you can follow our live streaming of today’s court proceedings as well as our live, real-time commenting of courtroom testimony and argument as it occurs, right here.
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And don’t forget to join us this evening for our usual plain English legal analysis and commentary of the day’s proceedings, along with the courtroom video of it all.
Remember
You carry a gun so you’re hard to kill.
Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
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Comments
Perhaps that’s risky. Just get the appropriate expert to testify that any zoom with interpolation adds information that wasn’t in the ‘original’.
Yeah, but I don’t think the defense can call any new witnesses at this point.
The two enhanced photographs don’t match! How can they be accurate depictions from the video if they don’t match each other?
Very annoyed with the lawyers on both sides for their technical ignorance here. This is a murder trial, they need to do proper research.
Is Fatlock going to cry?
a frame without ability to show if it was actually pointing at ziminski, or whether he was ‘aiming’ it, versus moving it where for a moment it appears it was pointing in the direction of someone, blah blah, who cares?
missing a lot of this today, but so much video where none show him brandishing the weapon, and now this last minute attempt? please.
It reminds of the video review in the NFL where the view from one camera gives a different perspective than another camera. Depending the placement of the camera, a football can appear on the goal line, behind the goal line, or past the goal line. And they are trying to say an enhanced and modified video image can show that Rittenhouse was pointing his gun directly at someone who is not even on screen? That’s their case? I don’t even understand how that’s meaningful, in any way. Aiming is not shooting, and causes no harm.
Prosecution is claiming “provocation”, that Kyle had provoked the mob by pointing a gun at them before rabid dog #1 chased him.
Didn’t the body cam show that portion of time? With all of the video floating around, seems like someone would have had it.
Not that it matters in the end. Kyle didn’t shoot him.
My guess is that they realized how weak their case was and doctored images to show the rifle raised and then ran the smoothing algorithms to cover up the modifications. They got nothing and they know it.
Sorry, but if you’re adding pixels, you’re making sh!t up.
If you know what’s supposed to be there, you might be able to reasonably making things up.
But you don’t get to say “He’s guilty, this image I made up shows that!”, when it was your decisions that turned it from “can’t tell” to “can tell what I want it to tell”
Absolutely correct. Digital image manipulation is NOT analogous to using a magnifying glass or blowing up a photographic image shot on film. I can’t believe there isn’t existing case law on this. Shouldn’t the prosecution be citing law that supports the process they want to use?
All Aboard! The Kenosha Railroad.
Fuzzy photographic images, eh? Did the prosecution find Bigfoot?! There’s more evidence of Bigfoot than wrongdoing by Rittenhouse!
It’s possible – reasonable doubt injected. Of course, I cannot determine the rifle in the pic they are showing – and I have tried to see it. Looks to me like he is walking over a crack in the parking lot that was there before he walked by it.
That was Hunter with the crack, not Kyle… 🙂
A better line of questioning would deal with the camera that took the picture in the first place. What was the resolution of the camera? Processing algorithms cannot, in an information theory sense, add any information. The processed image may “look better” but it may well leave the impression with the viewer that he is seeing more than the actual information content of the camera image.
Programs like Photoshop can sharpen images, but they are manipulating pixels. The only honest way to do what they wanted is to just make the pixels larger.
It’s not a great look how hard they are fighting this. Really makes it looks like there’s something damaging there.
If we take a step back from the issues and testimony, what is everyone’s gut feeling about how Poindexter and Curly come across to the jury
Are they likeable? Do they appear to be acting in good faith?
Do they appear to have ulterior motives outside of truth and justice?
Would you buy a used Yugo from either of them?
“These programs do not add detail.”
Patently false.
the enlargement methods are REPRODUCIBLE but may not be ACCURATE
Fatlock just got burned by his own witness. lol
I am not convinced of the prosecution team’s claim that KR was pointing his rifle towards Ziminsky.
And besides, no eye witnesses either.
Very good point
No recross?
“Mr. Armstrong. Did it take you 20 hours to work on this single image because you were told exactly what you were supposed to find and tested a variety of procedures to make it actually happen?”
The fact that he worked on it for 20 hours sounds really suspicious. That’s a lot of interpolation.
I got the idea that he was talking about all of the work he did on the video. Didn’t he do work on it that he testified about the other day?
The enhanced videos doesn’t show him with a gun up. For that to be gun up he would be shouldered left handed and the lighter area that would be his right hand forward is a dot that is consistently in the same spot as kyle drops the fire extinguisher so not part of him but appears to be in the still pics.
I know some of this already, based on static-image editing, not video-editing… did some hasty research to be sure.
But the correct answer SHOULD be, that if you use a nearest-neighbor sizing algorithim, and always expand the image by a factor of… I think base 3 …. that all the program will do is simply take every individual pixel, and turn it into 9 identical pixels of exactly the same color and brightness.
With bilinear or bicubic, you’re actually going to get new, “averaged” pixels in between every old pixel. which will basically cause some level of ‘blurring’ along the transition lines. If you have a white pixel bordering a black pixel, and expand it with bilinear, the new pixel in between will be grey. With nearest neighbor, it will just pick either black or white, and the trick is to make sure that you’re increasing the relative size of image by such a factor that both black AND white will get an equal number of black and white pixels added next to them, instead of forcing the algorithm to pick only one of them in some instances.
That is VERY helpful. Thanks. They should have had YOU testify today.
WTF is the persecution going to talk about for TWO FUCKING HOURS? They have no evidence to talk about.
True. But, Binger and co. know full-well that the longer they pound the table and obfuscate and fill the gaping factual and evidentiary holes in their case with innuendo against Mr. Rittenhouse, the greater the chance that jurors will be swayed by their arguments, as weak as they intrinsically are.
Or, if I was on the jury, the more pissed off at Binger I’d be.
If Binger was the prosecutor and the defendant was Charles Manson I’d probably vote not guilty because Binger.
That’s a great quotation from that federal judge; I never heard it, before — “The brain cannot absorb what the seat cannot endure.”
It won’t take the jury two and half hours to deliberate if they’ve been paying attention. A long closing argument doesn’t help.
Here is one of the photos
https://darwinsastroworld.com/blurry.JPG
thanks, do you have the others?
and are they labeled at all? I have NO IDEA what that photo is supposed to be showing.
I may be able to get more when the individual videos are posted. I just did a screenshot of the video while it played. It is supposed to show Kyle pointing his rifle at the guy that fired a shot in the air. I can’t remember his name.
That made my eyes bleed. Did they actually proffer this as evidence?
Mine too.
Bungle is gonna bore the jury into a catatonic state and then attempt to hypnotize them. Prove me wrong.
They are adding lesser charges so there will be a chance they may find him guilty of something less than the murder
You had me at “something.” Without a shred of evidence, or support in the law, Binger (and those like-minded) want KR convicted of “something”-anything, for having the temerity to have tried to stand up to rioters generally, and then having the gall to defend himself personally.
That’s what I thought about the Derek Chauvin trial. Most of the stuff he was charged with couldn’t possible apply to him, but the jury convicted him anyway. IIRC, reckless endangerment was literally shooting a gun into a crowd. That didn’t stop the jury from convicting him for it
I agree completely. We’re in uncharted territory when it comes to outside influence on jury decisions., I think we’re also in a place where the same political bifurcation that affects just about every other aspect of life is affecting the jury pool as well. People come to the case with such hardened, seemingly unchangeable political beliefs the actual evidence of the case becomes secondary if not outright irrelevant. This is particularly true when the case is overtly political in nature as I would argue this became over last summer.
The correct verdict of not guilty on all counts would go some way towards reaffirming my trust in the system. But, I’m afraid the more likely outcome is hung jury with conviction on some or even all counts not being an impossibility. Anything is possible in this climate.
He did Jaywalk. I saw it on the video.
Appears the Kenosha Railroad has a great menu for Binger to add to his order for desert. I am just amazed they can do this after the trial and evidence is closed.
what happened to the deputy that was going to say KR was never issued a bulletproof vest? And the statement that he was not enrolled in college?
They didn’t have time to get them. The judge didn’t want to delay things any more
I guess they didn’t want to wait for the Grayslake PD “witness.” The “scoop” was in a “fact checking” article The Chicago Tribune published today. Apparently cadets have to buy the vests, but they can fundraise to pay for them. That’s likely what Kyle Rittenhouse is. Also, he isn’t “enrolled” at ASU but is taking online classes there.
If you’re taking online classes you’re not ‘enrolled?’ Really? That hardly seems logical. Did someone testify to this? (I didn’t get a chance to see much of the trial today).
No, it was not brought up in front of the jury.
I am surprised he gave them the entire 2.5 hours each. He appeared inclined to cap it. There is no way the defense will use it all.
It’s incredible that they are allowing these pictures in that were developed in the past week?
The pics are pathetic and show nothing. They are irrelevant to self defense.
Was either Ziminsky called to testify?
No.
Probably because they would just come off as deranged, angry, people in need of psychological help.
If I were defense, one argument I would get b4 the jury is, “It’s not a crime to volunteer as security or to get paid to do so. 1,000’s of young people every year act as cadets, become security officers, orcwork as unpaid police reserves and are known as “wanna-be’s” You may think he made poor choice(s) being there but not a crime, maybe not something you would choose to do, but 1,000’s do every year.
No. Kyle did what we all should do if our city is attacked by communist revolutionaries. Not a poor choice. I respectfully disagree with your position on this issue. IMO your attitude is a surrender to the mob, I do not think citizens should hand them the keys to the city and hide. JMO.
I think his(?) point is that there are a lot of people are doing the “he shouldn’t have been there” routine. And that just because you may think it was a bad or unwise decision for him to go there, him being there is not a crime nor does it remove his privilege to exercise justified self defense.
What “communist revolutionaries’?
There’s an anger problem in this country across all spectrums of society, on both ideological extremes.
These lost, angry souls are drawn to civil disturbances like moths to a flame.
A columnist for a Chicago paper said all of the actors in this drama are nothing more than a profanity relating to a bodily orifice, the ‘victims’ as well as the defendant.
In the last quatrain of my life, I have no sympathy for rioters and looters.
And, yeah, I’d be mad as heck if troublemakers from outside came into my town and destroyed my neighbors’ livelihoods, and I’d raise hell with my elected officials.
But 17 year old wannabes with long guns are surely not the answer.
Agree Elzorro.
It should be encouraged for this type of behaviour. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
The police had the do nothing part already rolling, which shows whos side they are on, so the young men, and ol’ Grambo, stood up in their stead and demanded good triumph over the evil that had visited their city.
Vive Le Republic!
There for that. His courage is inspiring. If they try that around here there will be a Kyle behind every tree.
Apparently in Wisconsin the state can add a bunch of lesser charges after the evidence is closed and the trial is over. I am stunned.
Madness.. If they want to add lesser charges, they should have to vacate the higher charges.
Wisconsin Criminal Law must be run by democrats. They can find new charges under the table or in car trunks just like democrat votes appear after elections are over.
In some jurisdictions, jury instructions on a lesser-included charge can be added, provided there is admitted evidence supporting the charge already in the record. IIRC, in the Casey Anthony capital murder trial, it was the defense that wanted LICs, because they hoped the jury might convict only on a lesser charge, thus saving the defendant’s life, but the prosecution refused to agree and the judge declined to add any. The prosecution was simply all in on the death penalty for Casey. IMO, that is why the jury, which could not find evidence even how the little girl died, let alone whether it had been a murder or that the defendant was solely responsible, had returned an acquittal. It was ‘all or nothing’ as to the homicide. Maybe these prosecutors see they have no chance at any of the major charges so hope to give the jury something else on which to compromise.
Anything created via an AI should not be admissible. By definition it’s impossible to know why an AI makes a decision without fully examining the decision tree. AI’s often find ways of doing things humans would never even try. It should be considered hearsay.
Better call Judge Norton and let him know.
The interesting factor is that it doesn’t appear to really show anything “more” than we’ve already seen. So it just seems desperate. Realistically we’re not seeing any of this evidence presented in a best/native source. It was all transcoded initially on the recording device and likely transcoded at least once again along the chain of custody.
Also showing video or images is ideally done on a screen with exactly the number of pixels as contained in the media. Referred to 1:1, Also great are 1:4, 1:16 etc.. (A Square of pixel vs single pixel creates an almost perfect image) Often referred to as HiDPI.
So ironically a smaller view of an image is just as likely to remove info as a larger view of an image that uses some type of image scaling.
We’ve all witnesses how bad older content can look on a 1080P screen. But interestingly enough might look better on a 4k display. This is because the additional pixels on the display allow a more accurate scaling of the content. Closer to a Square of the original resolution. (Scaling algorithms have gotten better with faster SoCs (System on Chips)
It’s a clown show. Binger is praying the jury has watch Law & Order episodes, or CSI.
You know the ones where they have some ATM camera video and the hero tells a tech to “zoom in” and it’s all grainy as hell..
Then hero says “enhance” and magically a license plate 100ft away can be read in 1080p. Absolute BS, but hey I saw it on the realistic cop show with the BLM/Feminist lieutenant so it must be possible.
Enhance, Enhance, Enhance.
Well it might be fun watching the media try to make sense of this stunning last minute evidence all weekend.
On Christmas Eve, 2019 police were called to Binger’s girlfriend’s house for a domestic disturbance. Dispatchers could hear Binger yelling in the background as she was on the phone. This was a verbal argument that turned physical but medical treatment was declined.
Shocked I tell ya, shocked!
http://kenoshacountyeye.com/2020/11/19/kenosha-judge-and-prosecutor-gossip-like-high-school-cheerleaders-during-open-court/
Wait Binger has a girlfriend?
Yeah i almost spit my whisky out too.. Also, says he is 50+yrs old.. Looks like a jagoff millenial to me. Leads me to think he just one of those boomers who peaked in high school and desperate to stay cool.. Failing yes, but still trying too hard
If you stare at their new “enhanced” images long enough, will you see a sailboat? Or maybe a pony?
If you put a plane of glass in front of it, then stare at your reflection.. Binger will indict you as a co conspirator
Haha
Here is what interpolation does: https://imgur.com/NGlKiYX
It absolutely adds data, adds new colors that weren’t there, and can create artifacts that might look like a gun is pointed where it wasn’t.
The effects are much more pronounced when working from low resolution photos (or a small section of a high resolution photo). They also are more pronounced with noisy backgrounds and motion blur that comes from grainy video filmed at night.
The judge is absolutely wrong to have allowed this as evidence.
Seems the detective just kept trying different “enhancements” til he got the artifact he wanted. This is not a scientific process. It’s not a repeatable process. And it is a terrible forensic process.
Did they discuss the exact type of Interpolation that was use? IE Simple Nearest-neighbor or something much more fancy like 2×SaI or xBR. NN would be bad enough, but the more fancy the more destruction of data. Looking better often doesn’t means the exact opposite of looking accurate to source material.
They just said it was basic cubical interpolation. But even that doesn’t tell you much, because you need to know how many operations it went through and how many pixels they started with. Not to mention that any noise in the original low-res source material could very easily turn into an artifact that move the angle of a gun ever so slightly.