Gasps escaped from law school students as they watched a fetus smash against the womb of a pregnant woman in the animated reconstruction of a car accident.
U.S. District Judge David McKeague demonstrated the use of computer simulation and other new technology used mostly in criminal trials Monday night at the Clif and Carolyn Haley Moot Court Room for students of the Geoffrey Fieger Trial Practice Institute.
"It is really exciting that this is available to students here - it is an edge students will have when interviewing for jobs," McKeague said.
The Moot Court Room, in the MSU College of Law, underwent a $600,000 technology upgrade completed Friday. Three large plasma screens were installed, as well as screens in the jury box to increase visibility and to keep the jurors' attention on the case.
"As soon as an image pops up on one of these screens, jurors' eyes are magically drawn to it," McKeague said. "There eyes will stay there until it is taken down."
McKeague used the evidence presentation system, or EPS, to show how Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City bombing could have been convicted in less than four minutes.
McKeague said showing jurors how the signature on the rental van visibly matches the one created through a handwriting test makes the case stronger than simply having an expert testify orally.
To show the capabilities of the EPS system, McKeague shined a light at a $20 bill from behind so the watermark would appear.
He also zoomed in on a $5 bill, to show the names of all 50 states printed on the top of the Lincoln Memorial, invisible to the human eye.
EPS also can be used to highlight or enlarge portions of documents to make them easier to read.
"One of the best parts is blowing up sections of documents so the jury can see exactly what you see," law student Frank Bayless said. "You can form your arguments around that."
McKeague works in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan and serves as adjunct professor for the law school. His courtroom received the technical upgrades January 2003, and said he has since tried about 30 cases.
"I've seen marked improvement in the jury's attention given to the case - particularly in longer trials," he said.
"From a court standpoint, a better-educated jury is more likely to reach the correct decision than a jury that isn't provided the information or is provided the information in a way that is hard to follow."
The law school will provide the software students need to utilize the technology and teach them how to take full advantage of its benefits.
"From what I've seen, the technology seems pretty user-friendly, but the intricacies seem hard to learn," law student Mike Kaiser said. "Being able to use and edit video, whether from depositions or recreations, makes a big jump from telling someone information to bringing it alive."
