If you were hoping the O.J. Simpson trial had already been milked of every possible “lesson,” forget it. The National Center for State Courts has just posted on its Web site 19 photographs from the trial to make a point about technology in the courtroom of the future. So many high-tech devices were used, interlinked with a spaghetti tangle of wiring, that Judge Lance Ito’s courtroom looked like a mad computer scientist’s garage.
The photos, in other words, illustrate “this is not the way to do it,” says Lin Walker, project director of the NCSC technology information service. She has no problem with the gizmos themselves. But in deploying them, “the idea is to be as non-intrusive as possible.”
