Proposed Model Rules Governing the Admissibility of Computer-Generated Evidence
James E. Carbine, Lynn McLain · Santa Clara Law Digital Commons (Santa Clara University) · 1999
The members of the jury sit in rapt concentration, their eyes riveted on the "eyewitness" account of an airplane crash.The focus of the jurors' attention, though, is not on the witness stand.It is on a computer monitor.The jurors are watching a computer-generated simulation of the crash.The story is being told in real time against the simultaneous voice-over of the cockpit crew.The jury watches the doomed airliner from a distance, then through the eyes of the pilot, then from a distance again as the plane crashes to earth in a fireball.It is a chilling description of the final moments of Flight 162.1 Yet, all aboard the aircraft were killed.There are no surviving eyewitnesses.What the jury has seen is the product of a sophisticated piece 1. See generally Paul Marcotte, Animated Evidence: Delta 191 Crash Re-created Through Computer Simulations at Trial, A.B.