Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the possibilities and implications of employing virtual environments (VEs), immersive virtual environments (IVEs), and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) in the courtroom. We argue that the immersive and interactive reality created by these tools adds significant value as a simulation of experience to enhance courtroom practice. The obvious boundaries between real and virtual enhance the attractiveness of these tools as technologies of rhetorical persuasion that can be used to demonstrate subjective perspective, strengthen or impeach the credibility of witnesses and provide the trier of fact with a better understanding of each side's perception of the facts at issue. In the first section, we introduce the concepts of VEs, IVEs, and CVEs, describe the manners in which these technologies have been applied to settings other than the courts system, and review the relevant psychological and legal literature. In the second section, we discuss specific applications of the technology to the court system and suggest how it could improve upon current procedures. Finally, in the third section we discuss some of the limitations and problems. This last section suggests legal reforms necessary to the adoption of these technologies, specifically rules of procedure that provide for all parties to be able to access, manipulate and inspect any virtual environment, the trier of fact to be able to interact with, rather than just accept the lawyer's rendition, and rules that provide for the parties to introduce at trial an inventory of all digital assets contained in the virtual environment, making those that are stipulated to and those that are in controversy. IVEs and the Courtroom 3 While virtual environment technology is not yet fully realized, eventually it will provide distinct advantages to litigators within and outside of the courtroom. Its adoption should be promoted and even underwritten by the courts because this technology offers practical advantages for recreating crime and accident scenes, preparing witnesses, and experts, and conducting police lineups. But these immersive virtual environments are more than just faster videoconferencing techniques. While they offer practical advantages, as we shall discuss, they also represent a qualitative advance over earlier technologies. Unlike prior tools used for recreations and simulations, these are both immersive and interactive. There are those that argue that the risk of manipulation should prevent multimedia from being adopted in trial practice, but it is precisely because these new technologies produce simulated yet interactive reality that they are an ideal technique for rhetorical persuasion and argument. They are particularly well-suited for use in contexts where a subjective measurement of perspective is called for and where that perspective needs to be tested and even impeached. This article seeks to provide the raw material -an understanding of the technology -to argue for the use of these technologies and to enable lawyers and policymakers to make informed decisions about how these technologies will be introduced into the legal process. The immersive, interactive and highly mutable quality of these virtual environments does not vitiate their value to the legal process. Rather the characteristics of the technology point toward adopting procedural rules that allow all parties to "play" with the virtual reality simulations. This means that judge, jury and litigants should be able to test the immersive experience. All parties should have access to the simulation to be able to alter IVEs and the Courtroom 4 the perspective and impeach the credibility of the simulation. Finally, parties should be required to submit a list of "assets" or virtual objects included in a simulation and to mark graphically within the simulation those that are stipulated those, those that constitute dramatic interpretation and those that are known to be controverted.