UK: first major trial using only electronic documents
The UK's first major criminal trial to use only electronic documents is under way.
It was a strange day at the Office when everyone turned up at Birmingham Crown Court a few days ago: the judge had ordered that the entire trial be held using only electronic documents.
The trial, tax evasion is alleged and the trial expected to last some four months, will refer to some 11,000 pages of documents. Transcription is undertaken manually but is instantly available to all within the Courtroom: thus evidence and speeches are available to the jurors without recourse to their own notes; everyone gets the same message (so jury room arguments over what was said should be reduced) and the information is searchable.
The expectation is that jurors will be released from trying to remember every detail of complex material knowing that they can go back and check later: as a result, they will be able to focus on the evidence, particularly documentary evidence, more easily.
Fraud and money laundering trials are frequently defeated by the simple expedient of the defendant causing confusion. This is especially so in long trials. It is hoped that the ability to cut to the documents will result in trials being decided on the evidence on evidence not juror fatigue.
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