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party indices). In court, different retrieval information may be       [PP75]
added to enable retrieval (eg exhibit numbers as matters are received
in evidence). There are difficult questions as to whether such value
adding should be available to the Court / jury / other side, either
compulsorily or as a matter of choice by the party creating the value
adding (see Chapter 6).


Examples of exhibit imaging - the Equiticorp trial


In the Equiticorp trial in New Zealand from June to December 1992 (see Chapter
3 and Tompkins (1992)), extensive use was made of document imaging. Following
depositions, 43,000 pages of documentary exhibits were converted into image
form, and this increased by about a quarter as new exhibits were added early
in the trial. Tompkins J imposed nine specifications before approving use of
the imaging system, including the following: a response time of five seconds
or less from when a document number is entered; a system ready for testing a
month before the trial started; capacity to enter new documents during trial;
and computer outlets outside the courtroom and in the judge's chambers, so
that judge and counsel could access the system outside court hours. Access by
modem was considered but rejected on cost grounds.

Tompkins J suggested the use of imaging, the first time it has been used in a
New Zealand trial, and the Justice Department had the system installed under
tender, at its cost. A Wang PC with 1.37 Gb disk capacity was used as the
image server. The software for image retrieval and display was Open Image
Windows, using the DOS/Windows operating system. In the courtroom, twelve A4
size monitors were used, one each for the seven accused, the crown, the
witness, the registrar, the judge's bench and the judge's chambers. Cabling
was placed under the courthouse floor. Either the registrar or examining
counsel could operate the PC to cause an exhibit to appear on the witnesses'
screen. It is possible to page forward or backward through a document on
screen. The system was not a 'slave' system where all monitors necessarily
displayed the same image. Each of the twelve users could access the image
database independently. However, any user can see what image is being
displayed to the witness by pressing a single key. Tompkins J saw these two
features as crucial. Tompkins J observes that witnesses have not asked to see
paper copies of documents about which they are being questioned, and seem to
have found it easier to refer to documents presented on screen.

Among the advantages identified by Tompkins J are that 'considerable' time
has been saved in dealing with exhibits; that counsel, judge and witnesses
have all found it easier to refer to documents; and that there has been less
clutter in the courtroom, with judge and counsel requiring virtually no access
to paper copies of exhibits (Tompkins (1992)). Evidence flowed more smoothly
because witnesses were not delayed in addressing documents. The witness could
page back and forward within a document image once it was on screen. New
documents were selected for the witness by court staff. During submissions,
the judge could call up documents on screen to which counsel was referring
(Tompkins Notes (1993)). Tompkins J concluded that the system is 'here to
stay', 'will be used in long civil or criminal document based trials', and
would be 'an even bigger advantage' in a jury trial. The only reported
disadvantage is that this system does not allow retrieval of images by any
means other than document page number, so access by name of document or any
other form of text searching is not possible. Perhaps this could have been
overcome by integration with the document control database. The hardware was
dismantled after the Equiticorp trial, and it has not yet been decided whether
the document images will be used in the hearing of the appeals.


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