The Distributed Courtroom: Don’t Assume the Trial Feels Any Less ‘Real’ When It Appears on Screens | Persuasive Litigator
With the extended pandemic restrictions and the resulting court backlogs across the country, we have moved tentatively into the world of online trials and hearings, with participants joining from different locations. In that distributed setting, many critics have argued that the resulting process just cannot possibly be the same. The participants will feel and look isolated, eye contact will be impossible, witnesses will be less credible, accusers and defendants will be less sympathetic, and jurors’ minds will wander. The result, they say, is an inability to truly confront witnesses, a reduction in courtroom solemnity, and the loss of a fair trial.