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Can Power Point Prejudice Juries? 29

Posted by timothy from the and-especially-no-flash dept.
expriest writes "Recently, Slashdot considered the issue of e-courts which allow electronic filing of documents and court proceedings to be viewed on flat screens. Some commentators, however, are now questioning the effect of more commonplace technology on the courtroom, Power Point." Below, a bit on the reasoning behind their objections to electronic showmanship in the courtroom.

expriest continues "Theoretically, all trials feature two equally zealous advocates who each forcefully advocate for their clients. The idea is that by giving each litigant a powerful and equally persuasive advocate as their attorney, they will cancel each other out and the truth will be left in the shakeup. But what happens when one attorney uses technology to gain an unfair advantage?

Already one court, the Court of Appeals of Washington, held in State v. Robinson that the prosecution should not have been allowed to use Power Point in their closing argument, for fear that the jury would be move convinced by fancy graphics than by actual evidence.

Trial graphics companies are already a boom industry, with businesses like Trial Image making millions off of lawyers struggling to reduce their case to a picture. The question is, how far should this go? Does even simple technology like Power Point reduce trials to a contest of presentation, not a contest of facts and law?"
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Can Power Point Prejudice Juries? More

Can Power Point Prejudice Juries?

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  • Rediculous (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Skalizar ( 676291 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:21PM (#10514386)
    A slick oration, a slick computer presentation, its all the same thing. Lawyers have been using printed versions of the same thing for years without it coming under question, how is it different just because its displayed electronically? Because they can use animated wipes?
    • True, but why should courts allow yet another thumb to sit on the scales of justice?
      • I suspect that if you were a wrongfully-accused defendant, you'd be in favor of any and every means of presenting your defense, and why the hell not?

        Presentation software isn't any more hypnotic than graphs and charts. I can't see where only allowing flip charts drawn by hand will do anything but favor the side with access to better graphic artists -- at least presentation software (PowerPoint, OpenOffice, or whatever) is within the means of any law firm with a PC.

        Besides, I've been on a jury, and contrar

        • I must point out that the poster's experience represents one jury in one judicial district out of the, literally, hundreds across the U.S. Many cases are decided by juries from jury pools selected by one party (venue shopping). L.A. County is a notorious example. Here in Illinois, Madison County is the jury pool ne plus ultra.
          • Well yes, of course mine is a single datum. Still, given that anybody this side of the Amish gets pretty constant exposure to shiny things, I can't imagine that the people of Madison County will be awe-struck by a series of bullet charts with fades.

            Has anybody ever really demonstrated that jury consultants have a clue? I suspect that, like advertising, it's largely voodoo.

            • No ... they are pretty much all mouth-breathers. Imamine a whole county populated by Chris Griffin clones.

              I can't say whether or not they have a clue, but Dr. Phil sure has a really big house and a lot of money.
              • Well, that sounds like most places, really -- roughly half the population is below average.

                I know jury consultants make money, but so do psychic healers and Congressmen. I'm just wondering if they really do any good. Just as my single datum may reflect the whole badly, the whole is often a terrible predictor of any one datum. Knowing that middle-aged single gay men of Asian descent responded positively to red paisley ties 73% of the time doesn't mean that you won't get the guy who's driven to seizures by t

  • Computer Presentation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by I_Love_Pocky! ( 751171 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:37PM (#10514494)
    Well I for one would laugh if they single out "Power Point." Last time I checked that was just one of many different computer presentation programs. Or perhaps they are suggesting that Microsoft has special skills at warping the legal system?

    • Erm .... (Score:3, Funny)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 )
      Or perhaps they are suggesting that Microsoft has special skills at warping the legal system?


      Maybe not specifically with Power Point, but I believe they've demonstrated they already do have that ability. :-P

  • What this seems to be (Score:3, Informative)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:38PM (#10514499) Journal
    The explanation provided here seemed a bit lacking, but after some digging through links, there seem to be at least three issues with "PowerPoint":
    • Unfairly prejudicial graphical elements and clip art
    • Animations and reconstructions that may come across as more objectively precise than is the case
    • "PowerPoint" being used to refer to any graphical presentation, like how people refer to software as "the Microsoft"

    None of this has anything to do with PowerPoint, per se.

    • * Unfairly prejudicial graphical elements and clip art
      * Animations and reconstructions that may come across as more objectively precise than is the case
      * "PowerPoint" being used to refer to any graphical presentation, like how people refer to software as "the Microsoft"

      And this differs from other evidence exactly how?

      • Re:What this seems to be (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        I could explain, but I get the impression you're going to come back with an endless stream of analogy about how clip art in a graphical presentation is just like verbal pictures in an oral address and...

        Fine. I'm not the one arguing these claims in court -- I just bothered to RTFA and am trying to explain what issues are being raised, as opposed to the karma whores yapping about how this is an attack on PowerPoint (TM) specifically.

      • It differs because it's synthetic. It's created by the attorney to be as persuasive as possible. Contrast a police photo of the crime scene with the attorney pointing to various locations and verbally explaining his version of the incident to a 3-D CGI rendered "flyby" of the scene with all sorts of re-enactment style "he was standing here", "he meant to shoot here", "it might have looked like this" annotations. With a high enough budget those things can tend to look like Hollywood movie versions of real

  • Job add (Score:5, Funny)

    by Deternal ( 239896 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:39PM (#10514502) Homepage
    Thou must have:
    Extensive knowledge in patent and copyright law.
    Atleast 3 years of experience in litigation.
    Common knowledge of computers.
    Have excellent skills in Adobe Photoshop
    Have a Microsoft Certified Law Presentations certificate.

    Please send applications to:
    The SCO Group
    355 South 520 West
    Suite 100
    Lindon, Utah 84042 USA

  • Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words (Score:3, Funny)

    by infonography ( 566403 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @12:40PM (#10514509) Homepage
    So if you are going on trial you now need to get a good powerpoint guru as well as a good lawyer. Defense should go for distance and agony. Sitting thru a really long Powerpoint demo is enough to say;

    "Fine screw it, I don't care if he did kill all those people I will go with Innocent just to make it stop."

  • New product announced by Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by jsveiga ( 465473 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:33PM (#10514871)
    Microsoft (MSFT) has announced the the MS Court Room, a complete Law Office suite including contact management, presentation tools, video production, criminal database search, and many other features to make sure your Court Experience will be embraced and extended.

    Also included is a new technology called ClippyLaw, which will automatically call "Objection!" for you, and a state-of-the-art Evidence Manipulation/Statement Retouching software based on News Media Player.

    Updated templates for Anti-Trust cases can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site.

  • A ham sandwich can influence juries (Score:5, Informative)

    by ghostlibrary ( 450718 ) on Wednesday October 13, 2004 @01:41PM (#10514946) Homepage Journal
    Now, I realize the idea of court being a fair fight against two equally-matched opponents is appealing, but it's never been like that.

    A cute quip can favorably influence juries.

    A rigged demo can influence juries.

    An inexact analogy can influence juries (wookies, anyone?)

    A defendent wearing a suit can influence juries.

    A comment removed from the record can influence juries.

    A slur against someone's past can influence juries.

    An exaggerated testimony can influence juries.

    A better-speaking lawyer can influence juries.

    Whether the jury is hungry or looking to get home early can influence juries.

    Expert witnesses can influence juries.

    I don't see why PowerPoint or any technology is any different from the hundreds of tools-and-tricks available to trial lawyers. It does seem unfairly singled out.
  • Powerpoint can be a very useful tool in presenting something, and probably also for presenting a side in a legal dispute. However, there are good and bad powerpoint presentations. The good kind presents information, while the bad kind only pretends to show information - what it really contains is a lot of emotional intimidation.

    I've seen a lot of powerpoint presentations in my life, and generally, I can discern the good ones from the bad ones. Within my own field of expertise, of course.

    When I think


  • Power corrupts.

    PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

  • This is an old, old topic. It was widely discussed in the aftermath of the Mitchell brothers [eonline.com] trial for a murder that happened in 1991. Some observers felt that the use by the prosecution of a sophisticated (for the time) animated recreation of their version of events unduly swayed the jury.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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