What if you could transport the jury of a courtroom to the scene of an accident? What if you could teleport the opposition to the driver’s seat of the defendant’s car from a mediation room just before a horrific collision?
Well, the courtrooms of the future may look different – thanks to the rise of virtual reality!
Will the lawyers soon be seen arguing their cases in a virtual courtroom, maybe from their living room, without being confined to a physical location? Large companies such as Facebook are spending billions of dollars to invest in this technology. So is there a possibility that VR applications will be used in the legal profession as well? Will there be improvements in the practice of law with the immersion of virtual worlds in the courtrooms? Come, let’s find answers to these questions.
Virtual reality can be regarded as one of the most highly anticipated and the most intriguing technological advancements on the horizon. So, how does this work?
With virtual reality, a virtual world is created depending on the data that is gathered from the real world. If one has the right amount of data along with evidence, any environment can be recreated virtually and can be simulated what occurred – quite similar to forensic animation.
Virtual reality opens up your field of vision, letting you see the whole world built around you. Actually, the experience tricks your brain and makes it feel like you are inside that virtual world. This effect is called “immersion”. This immersive experience can actually add significant value to your case. Here are some examples –
1. Virtual POV perspective
With POV animations, your audience in a virtual reality courtroom can objectively observe a defendant’s actions in order to make sure if s/he could have avoided a crash easily or not. This can help in making the decision easy for a jury. Of course, the virtual world needs to look accurate or real.
2. Virtual breakdown of product defects
As the underlying defects can be unclear or complex, the product liability cases can be hard to explain. Animation enables you to break a product apart and show what exactly went wrong. If virtual reality could be used in these cases, the jury could be immersed in this experience and see all the parts of the products up close.
3. Virtual cardiology in medical cases
VR is not limited to forensics. The audience can be immersed into any biological anatomy where they could not only see, but also interact with the concept that you are trying to make them understand. Explaining some medical conditions to a jury in the courtroom can be extremely difficult. However, if you could make them experience that condition virtually, it would offer limitless context for understanding.
Is this the future of courtrooms? Well, the law enforcement profession is embracing the VR technology rapidly in order to enhance the crime scene training, crime scene investigations and courtroom presentations. In the near future, the VR technology will play an important role through the use of mobile mapping, 3D imaging and precision use of photos, measurements and capabilities to secure as well as preserve evidence and crime scenes. Presently, it is the high cost of these systems that are keeping the mass from adopting this technology. Once the cost comes down, it is expected that the virtual reality technology will be widely available to the police departments in order to train the officers in honing their observations and collecting as well as recording evidence.
Virtual reality provides a sense of presence and this is exactly what makes it a game changer in the practice of law. It can be used to recreate accidents and show the jurors how things could have happened. This, in a way, can debunk stories and win cases. Also, this enables the jurors to rewind, change, zoom in and pause the vantage points. In fact, in some cases, they can even interact with certain elements in the simulation.
There is no doubt in the fact that it is an interesting technology. And as the price drops, it will be cropping up in courtrooms more frequently in the coming years.
