Law on Display: The Digital Transformation of Legal Persuasion and Judgment. By Neal Feigenson and Christina Spiesel. New York: New York University Press, 2009. 333 pp. $45.00 cloth.

Abstract

Law on Display: The Digital Transformation of Legal Persuasion and Judgment. By Neal Feigenson and Christina Spiesel. New York: New York University Press, 2009. 333 pp. $45.00 cloth. In Law on Display, Neal Feigenson and Christina Spiesel take readers into the high-tech world of twenty-first-century law. From the evidence gathered by the cameras in the police cars during the Scott v. Harris car chase to the animations and simulations prepared for litigation in the Vioxx product liability and Michael Skakel criminal trials, the authors show how technology can change what attorneys present, what judges are asked to consider in reaching decisions on admissibility, and what jurors see and hear in the courtroom. Laced with images that illustrate their examples, Law on Display presents a compelling picture of multiple aspects of digital technology that have the potential to influence comprehension and persuasion. For example, in the trial of Michael Skakel, accused of murdering his neighbor Martha Moxley, the prosecution's closing argument replayed a portion of a journalist's interview with the defendant that had previously been admitted into evidence. In the closing, it became part of a multimedia CD-ROM that combined the audio and text from the interview in which Skakel recalled how he had reacted when Moxley's mother asked him if he had seen Moxley (''I had a feeling of panic.'') with the picture of Moxley dead, presenting an implicit argument that Skakel felt panic when he recalled in horror what he had done the night before. In another case, the attorney for the SEC in SEC v. Koenig used a series of pictures and animations to describe a complex fraud scheme. How effective were these methods? One can be sure, although seasoned court observers who viewed the arguments were impressed. Did these presentations merely clarify, or did they introduce bias? As Feigenson and Spiesel warn, while the clarity and compelling nature of digital technology can aid comprehension, technology can also mislead. The question increasingly faced by judges is how to evaluate these potential effects. The challenge for judges is that they too are subject to the naive realism that Feigenson and Spiesel describe, the potentially distorting dangers of the human tendency to believe in the truthfulness of perception. A few years ago, Judge Michael Brown of the Pima County Superior Court in Arizona spoke to a judicial audience at a panel on jury trials. Imagine, he said, that an eighteenth-century physician entered a twentieth-century hospital operating room. Nothing would look remotely familiar to the time-traveler doctor. In contrast, although an eighteenth-century trial attorney might be surprised by the absence of wigs and the presence of women in the jury box, the twentieth-century courtroom and procedures would be comfortably familiar. …