UK court using VR to transport jurors to the scene of the crime
Using virtual reality to transport viewers to another place or time is on the rise when it comes to gaming and virtual tourism. But a new program in the UK is harnessing the technology to help jurors in criminal cases experience and relate to crime scenes during evidence presentations.
The program, according to a BBC report, is being led by a Staffordshire University research group and supported by a research grant of more than $200,000 from the European Commission.
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Using VR headsets, cameras and traditional green screen effects, the research group has put together a system that plunges jurors into the middle of a crime scene while simultaneously allowing an attorney to guide viewers through the scene and its evidence.
"Doing that in a way that is far easier for juries to understand and appreciate -- which can only be good for everybody, for prosecution and defense," Simon Tweats, the head of justice services at Staffordshire Police, told the BBC.
In the demonstration video accompanying the report, a user is shown using the HTC Vive to dive into the crime and tour a sample crime scene.
While bringing this kind of technology into the courtroom is indeed innovative, it's not the first time researchers have collected criminal trial evidence and used it to produce VR environments.
Just last year, veteran journalist Nonny de la Peña and her team painstakingly recreated the February 2012 Florida shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. In that experience (see video above), made available at a series of live events, viewers were able to don VR headsets and relive the night of the fatal shooting.
For now, the VR crime scene is only planned as a local experiment. However, as VR continues to go mainstream, it's possible that more litigators will attempt to employ the technology as a means to reach jurors with the next best thing to reality.
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Topics Virtual Reality
