In the courtroom environment, oral presentations are becoming increasingly supplemented and replaced by advancing digital technologies that provide legal practitioners with effective demonstrative capabilities. Improvements in the field of virtual reality (“VR”) are facilitating the creation of immersive environments in which a user’s senses and perceptions of the physical world can be completely replaced with virtual renderings. As courts, lawyers, and experts continue to grapple with evidentiary questions of admissibility posed by evolving technologies in the field of computer-generated evidence (“CGE”), issues posed by the introduction of immersive virtual environments (“IVEs”) into the courtroom have, until recently, remained a largely theoretical discussion.
Though the widespread use of IVEs at trial has not yet occurred, research into the practical applications of these VR technologies in the courtroom is ongoing, with several studies having successfully integrated IVEs into mock scenarios. For example, in 2002, the Courtroom 21 Project (run by William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts) hosted a lab trial in which a witness used an IVE. The issue in the case was whether a patient’s death was the result of the design of a cholesterol-removing stent or a surgeon’s error in implanting it upside down.