ABSTRACT

Research has shown, however, that extra-legal factors may influence legal representatives and, thus, get in the way of them only considering the legal facts of the case. This chapter discusses the legal and psychological consequences of one such category of extra-legal factors: visual courtroom technology. It illustrates how different visual courtroom technologies influence, for example, legal representatives' evaluation of witnesses, victims and defendants. The chapter introduces different visual courtroom technologies and discuss their advantages and disadvantages from a legal perspective. It also illustrates that the technology has proven to be both beneficial and detrimental. The chapter considers differences in evaluation due to different camera perspectives. It also discusses how observers' evaluation of adult and child witnesses is affected by different visual courtroom technologies. The chapter focuses on to three presentation modes that have attracted researchers' attention and are currently in use in Nordic legal procedures, namely: live, video and videoconference.