Kansas City Star
1/10/1997

Jackson County Equipment Expected to Cut Costs,
Speed Up Proceedings.
By Joe Lambe
Staff Writer

Kansas City Star

Jackson County Circuit Judge William F. Mauer touches a lighted control panel – and the courtroom of the future warps into the here and now.

A computer monitor on his bench glows blue in tangent with four others elsewhere. As a test, Mauer says, "Now is the time for all good men." Almost immediately, his words appear on the monitor.

This prototype includes:

"Real time" recording that transforms words to written text, which will save thousands of dollars in transcript costs and allow deaf people to participate in trials.

A revolving podium where lawyers show, enlarge and highlight evidence that the judge and jury see on computer monitors.

Teleconferencing that allows experts to testify from other cities.

A power console that allows a judge to turn any part of the system on or off with a flick of his thumb.
Yet it's all more that high-tech gadgetry. Advocates say it will bring speedier, cheaper and even fairer justice. If the system lives up to its billing, it will provide a partial solution to overloaded courts that force some litigants to wait years for trials.

Jackson County this week installed and began using the $62,000 trial computer system.

"None of them have all this," Mauer said Thursday.

Jackson County does not intend to equip another courtroom like it.

After starting the system, Mauer walked 10 feet to a revolving platform featuring a monitor and a machine called Elmo. That machine, named for the company that makes it, became well-known during the O.J. Simpson criminal trial.

Evidence – including maps, guns, documents – placed on the Elmo platform appear on the computer monitors in three dimensions. Lawyers can highlight the evidence or make it larger or smaller. Evidence also can be logged and shown on CD-ROM, instead of repeatedly dragged out of dozens of bulging boxes. That saves time and money.

Ervin Hatch of inData, the company that sold and installed the system, said his company worked on the Simpson criminal trial and is logging evidence on CD-ROM for the Oklahoma City bombing case.

Mauer is using his new system in a long, complex civil trial involving a fatal car accident. Now jurors see each evidence exhibit on monitors instead of passing the exhibits among themselves.

"It's great," a juror said Thursday. "It really helps you understand."

And it should improve justice, experts say. Law schools teach that jurors remember 20 percent of what they hear and 80 percent of what they see.

That's one advantage of the court reporting system that turns the spoken word into text. And simultaneous recording makes an instant transcript for appeal, which usually takes months and costs litigants hundreds of dollars.

When Mauer suggested buying it two years ago, R. Lawrence Ward, chairman of a Kansas City Bar Association committee, started raising money for it. Lawyers donated $30,000 dollars for it. Jackson County paid $25,000 more, and Southwestern Bell contributed $7,000 worth of teleconferencing equipment.

The phone equipment saves lawyers thousands of dollars spent to fly in experts and put them up in hotels.

"A doctor in Mayo (Clinic in Minnesota) can testify from Mayo," Mauer said.

When all the savings are totaled up, he said, the equipment might pay for itself after two long trials.

Consider just one instance: the time wasted as lawyers pass 600 documents or other evidence for each juror to read and review. As time ticks, five top litigators draw $200 an hour each, not to mention money for their support staff, court reporters, the judge, and courtroom expenses such as heating and cooling.

The same benefits would apply to criminal cases that taxpayers finance. For example, a prosecutor could put on an out-of-town expert witness with a videoconference.

But it also raises questions. Will jurors react differently, for instance, to remote television testimony than they do live witnesses?

Studies soon may provide answers to that and other questions, said Professor Fred Lederer. He directs Courtroom 21, where the nation’s most advanced equipment is studied at William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Va.

"Because of how people react to television news," he said, "they may find a remote witness more credible. We call this the Walter Cronkite syndrome."

Jackson County may have the latest system, but some of the elements have been used in other courtrooms.

U.S. District Judge Roger Strand's court in Arizona was among the first three in 1986 to record testimony as it was spoken. Now about 40 federal courts use some kind of high-tech equipment, legal experts said, and administrators are installing some equipment in 30 more federal courts this year.

Jackson County, Strand said, is unusual in that "it has all the bells and whistles."

Lin Walker, a technology specialist for the National Center for State Courts in Virginia, said she knew of only three other state courts that had such equipment. Jackson County's new package probably is the most advanced, she said.

Basking in his courtroom's spot at the cusp of cutting-edge technology, Mauer patted the power podium. "This has it all."