I just finished up my third Philadelphia jury experience. I’m not going to give any details of names or locations, but one thing that struck me was the role of technology. This trial featured:
- Someone (allegedly) impersonating a delivery person
- Selfies, which ended up in court
- A (temporarily) purloined cell phone
- Police body cam videos
Now, about those police body cams. We started hearing about them in the context of police shootings of suspects, but after seeing them in court I realized that they change everything. First, there is a world of difference between hearing the testimony of a police office about what happened on the scene, and seeing and hearing (although the audio was not perfect) it for yourself. For one thing, police are not masters of public speaking. For another, the incident they are describing happened months or even years before, and was just a few short minutes during one busy day. They may have responded to hundreds or thousands of similar calls since then. The body cam footage will even help the police officers themselves remember what happened on the scene before they testify.