China's Courts Are Live Online

China has a remarkable online system to provide live video streams of court trials. On this website: http://tingshen.court.gov.cn/ , China Court Trial Online, you can readily access the surveillance cameras in courtrooms all over the People's Republic of China, and watch the proceedings in realtime.

To use the site, simply scroll down to the map of China, and select any one of hundreds of courts from any of the provinces of China. (If like me, you can't read Chinese be sure to right click on Chrome and select 'Translate to English'.) The site contains archived videos of court hearings as well.

The video records are clearly quite extensive. Tonight, I was able to access both live and archived video of court proceedings in the Shenzhen Nanshan District People's Court:

. . . the Zigong City Gongjing District People's Court in Sichuan:

. . . the Wuhan Railway Transportation Intermediate Court:

. . . and the Lingqiu County People's Court in Shanxi:

According to the home page more than 12 million court proceedings have been posted on the site, and more than 20,000 will be broadcast today. The world's most populous country provides an opportunity to surveil its justice system, and vast resources to allow attorneys to learn from trials on a particular issue, or proceedings before an individual judge or panel.

I've seen videos posted online of appellate court oral arguments in American courts, but I'm unaware of such an extensive system being in place in the courts of any other country.

Object to, Admit, and Authenticate Evidence on the Move

There's a great smartphone app called Federal Evidence Applied, available for download here for the iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/federal-evidence-applied/id1232973956 , for $1.99, which is a great tool to have in the courtroom. The app is from David Shroyer, who is apparently a private developer, but it gives every sign of being extremely well thought-out. It is designed to take you through the steps of objecting to, admitting or authenticating evidence in a federal trial, through a series of guided menus. You can select a type of evidence:

. . . answer questions with respect to the nature of this evidence:

. . . and ultimately conclude in a green or red screen which indicates if the evidence can come in.

After questions concerning the admissibility of a police report . . .

. . . the user will be prompted run an authentication screen:

. . . in order to show what must be done to verify that a document is genuine.

An additional screen can then be run to check to see if the document satisfies the Best Evidence Rule.

Additional automated screens are available for competency; relevancy; prejudicial impact; hearsay; confirming the form of a question by an attorney is appropriate; different types of evidence (such as deposition or judicial notice of some fact); and when a court can make a preliminary determination on admissibility.

A separate guided menu is available to check to see what needs to be done to lay the ground for an objection to the admission of evidence.

The app also includes the text of the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Assuming you can get permission to bring your phone into a courtroom, this is a great tool to quickly help an attorney look up the steps she needs to follow to get evidence in, or keep it out.

Summary Charts and Demonstratives in the Jury Room

While demonstratives are usually excluded from the jury room during deliberations, a trial court can allow their use at its discretion. In United States v. Natale, 719 F.3d 719 (7th Cir. 2013), the Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's denial of a motion for a new trial by a defendant whose motion was based on the fact that the jury was allowed to use demonstratives during their deliberations. It concluded that the court did not abuse its discretion because:

1. Both sides were given the opportunity to give the jury demonstratives.

2. The demonstratives accurately represented evidence.

3. The demonstratives did not transport counsel to the jury room since labels were removed and the jury would have to identify their content by recalling testimony.

Taking the labels off a demonstrative exhibit can help separate it from an expert's testimony about the demonstrative.

Summary charts are real evidence which a jury can review during deliberations. Federal Rule of Evidence 1006 allows summary charts or calculations to be used to show the content of voluminous records, so long as the originals can be examined by other parties. This type of summary chart is based on admissible evidence. A pedagogical device summary is used to assist the jury in reviewing testimony or admitted exhibits, and a court may not permit it to be used during deliberations.