What evidence did jurors rewatch in the Rittenhouse trial and how did it shape their verdict?
Executive summary
Jurors in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial asked to rewatch multiple video recordings from the night of the shootings—most notably a civilian drone clip and an FBI aerial recording of Joseph Rosenbaum pursuing Rittenhouse—and spent concentrated time reviewing those and other camera angles during deliberations [1] [2]. Legal teams and experts say those repeated viewings were central to competing narratives about who was the aggressor and whether Rittenhouse reasonably feared for his life, and the jury ultimately returned not guilty verdicts after several days of deliberation [3] [4].
1. What the jury asked to rewatch: drone, FBI plane and multiple angles
The jurors explicitly requested to rewatch a set of videos shown at trial, including the contentious civilian drone footage and an overhead recording from an FBI surveillance aircraft that captured Rittenhouse’s encounter with Joseph Rosenbaum, along with other body‑cam and bystander clips taken before, during and after the shootings [1] [2] [5].
2. How much time they spent and where the review happened
During deliberations the panel spent concentrated minutes—reportedly about 45–46 minutes on at least one day—reviewing those videos inside the emptied courtroom, with judges allowing playback on a laptop and calling parties back for arguments related to the footage while deliberations continued [1] [6] [2].
3. Technical fights over the footage and a mistrial motion
Defense attorneys argued the prosecution had failed to provide a full high‑definition version of at least one drone clip and later complained a file had been compressed—shrinking from roughly 11.2 MB to 3.6 MB—prompting a mistrial motion that the judge said he would consider if the video’s admission proved decisive [1] [6] [7].
4. Competing readings of the same frames: chase, skateboard swing, and Grosskreutz’s gun
Prosecutors and defense counsel urged diametrically opposite inferences from the same sequences: prosecutors framed clips as evidence that Rittenhouse instigated danger by waving or pointing a weapon and that Rosenbaum was not grabbing the gun, while the defense and many analysts pointed to footage showing Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse, Huber swinging a skateboard and disputed frames about whether Gaige Grosskreutz had the pistol aimed at Rittenhouse before he was shot—evidence the trial dissected frame‑by‑frame [3] [2] [8].
5. Why the videos mattered under Wisconsin self‑defense law
Video replays mattered because the legal question presented to the jury was whether Rittenhouse reasonably believed he faced an unlawful threat and whether his use of force was necessary and proportionate; the visual record of pursuit, proximity and Grosskreutz’s pose could be read to satisfy those statutory elements, a point repeatedly emphasized by defense experts and commentators after the acquittal [9] [3] [8].
6. Juror perception, cognitive limits, and the uncontested fact of acquittal
Psychologists and legal scholars warned that raw video does not neutralize bias—viewers bring preconceptions and selectively attend to details in chaotic social scenes—so repeated viewings can reinforce competing narratives rather than produce a single objective account; nonetheless, after roughly 27 hours of deliberation the jury returned not guilty on all counts, a result observers linked closely to how jurors interpreted the multi‑angle footage in light of the judge’s instructions [10] [9] [4].
7. Limits of what can be known about how videos swayed individual jurors
None of the jurors spoke publicly to explain why they reached unanimity, and reporting can only document which clips were rewatched and the legal arguments about them; beyond that, reconstructing how individual jurors weighed frames, prior beliefs or emotional reactions is inherently speculative absent juror testimony [5] [11].