Trialling the use of Tablets in Australian Courts: The Jury is Still Out...

Australian Courtrooms are presently under pressure to adopt suitable technologies for evidence presentation in the courtrooms. This decision is to alleviate reliance on increasing volumes of paper based evidence documentation, harness the value of streamlining evidence presentation, reduce the time of trials and consequently increase courtroom availability. This paper discusses the findings of two ethnographic studies of court trial simulation activities held in the County Courts of both NSW and Victoria, where members of the Australian judiciary, including judges, barristers, lawyers, court administrators and law academics participated in criminal trial simulations where all of the evidence was presented with the use of tablet technology. This required the professional members of the judiciary to role-play as jury members, plaintiff, judge, the witness and courtroom administration. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate the capability of tablet technologies in the courtroom to the members of the judiciary community while identifying the requirements and wants of the participants, in order to produce a series of design recommendations for future development. It was found that there were substantially more advantages than just paper saving and reduced time produced from the introduction of technology as well as areas of concern for the judiciary.