The headings below indicate the Chapters in which each Recommendation may be found.

Ch 2 Key technologies in complex trials - overview

• Computing facilities provided to judges for use in chambers, and installed in courts, should be capable of multi-purpose use, including transmission and display of text, image and video, and preferably should support colour displays. Such facilities should be based on open operating systems.
• Computers provided to judges for use in chambers should be high quality microcomputers or workstations capable of running current graphical user interface (GUI) based operating systems, and with sufficient memory and storage capacity to run simultaneous memory intensive applications. Such computers should at least be networked to other computers in a Court system.
• If computers are installed in courts for use of judge, counsel, or solicitors, the same considerations should apply as for computers installed in judges' chambers. Security aspects of LAN interconnections require different considerations.

Ch 3 Criminal trial computerisation - a survey

• There should be developed, as a matter of highest priority, a national strategy for compatibility of computerised litigation support facilities between the Australian Securities Commission, the National Crime Authority, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. For such a national strategy to be fully effective, State court administrations should also cooperate in its development, so that these Commonwealth agencies can effectively utilise litigation support systems in State courts. Standards which may be needed, and one possible mechanism for developing such a national strategy, are recommended in this Report. These mechanisms are secondary to the priority of developing a national strategy for compatibility.

Ch 4 Transcript - supplying `clean water'

• The potential value of `real-time' computer-aided transcription (CAT) in complex trials could usefully be addressed by Mr Gary Byron in his Report to the AIJA. on court reporting. If consideration is given to adopting `real-time CAT' as standard equipment in any courts trying complex crime, care must be taken to ensure that the hardware and software used is capable of being used for other purposes, such as image retrieval.
• Court reporting services should be encouraged to regard the timely and reliable provision of transcript in computer-readable form as a high priority wherever such facilities are not available, or are not available at a reasonable cost. As a minimum standard, computer-readable transcript should be available on request in at least standard (ASCII) computerised form, on standard computer media ( at present 3.5" or 5.25" high density DOS disks), and available on the same day .
• On-line provision of transcript by court reporting services or government agencies should be encouraged , but is not a high priority.
• National standards for the form in which transcript is prepared , with the aim of facilitating text retrieval., should be developed and published as a matter of priority. The standards should be developed co-operatively between the court reporting services and the users of transcript. The standards should cover such matters as consistent references to exhibits and witnesses, numbering, text formats and any other matters which will facilitate the input of transcript into a wide range of retrieval programs. The standards should also include timeliness and storage media. A national recommendatory standard is desirable.
• Court Reporting Services should be encouraged to develop error and consistency-checking software such as the Catscan software in use in South Australia, and to use it to check all transcript which is provided to the courts or the parties for use in litigation support databases.
• A checklist for the evaluation of litigation support software suitable for Australian trials should be developed and publicised, possibly based on the ABA's Draft Guidelines for Litigation Support Software.
• Courtroom facilities should, where possible, include provision for the retrieval and display of transcript in as flexible a manner as possible.
• Legal aid providers should be encouraged to provide litigation support facilities on a `bureau' basis to those members of the private profession acting in criminal trials under legal aid who do not have litigation support facilities of their own. This matter should be addressed in any future consideration of the role of legal aid agencies, particularly in light of the need to provide legal aid to defendants charged with serious crimes.
• Departments or agencies responsible for the provision of information technology to Courts should be encouraged to provide to the parties to trials access to the litigation support facilities that they develop for Courts. Such access should be provided on a cost recovery basis where a defendant would otherwise not have access to equivalent facilities.

Ch 5 Exhibits and other documents - managing paper mountains

• As a matter of priority, the key Commonwealth agencies involved in the investigation and prosecution of complex crime (Commonwealth DPP, ASC and NCA) should coordinate their use of software, database design, and text and image formats for document control, free text retrieval, and image retrieval, to ensure that there is sufficient compatibility to enable prosecuting agencies to be presented with a `computerised brief' by investigative agencies. In doing so these agencies should be involved in, and take account of, the development of national standards concerning these matters, as recommended in this Report.
• All agencies involved in complex criminal trials should be aware of, and should consider implementing image storage and retrieval of documentary exhibits. Ideally, such imaging should be integrated with document control and transcript retrieval systems. The use made of these technologies in the Rothwells trial in Western Australia, and the Equiticorp trial in New Zealand should be considered carefully.
• Government Departments responsible for court administration should establish at least one courtroom in a State or Territory which is equipped fully to conduct a trial in which all dealings with exhibits are through an image database of exhibits, integrated with a text database for transcript. The court-provided facilities should include at least all necessary monitors and cabling, devices to control the distribution of images, and devices to capture and distribute images of exhibits as presented. The courtroom facilities used in the Rothwells trial in Western Australia, and the Equiticorp trial in New Zealand should be considered carefully.
• It would be valuable if a detailed case study could be conducted as a follow-up to this Report, of the uses of document imaging and its integration with other courtroom technologies, in the Rothwells trial in Western Australia and the Equiticorp trial in New Zealand. The study should focus on the identification of all technical lessons which can be learned from these cases, and a cost-benefit analysis. The AIJA should disseminate the results of the study.

Ch 6 Co-operation and procedure concerning computerised documents

• The proposed requirements that the prosecution may be directed to disclose copies of statements of witnesses to be called, exhibits intended to be produced and other documents as directed (as per Victorian Crimes (Fraud) Bill 1992, cl 13(3)) (Aronson recommendation 10) should be supplemented by a provision whereby the Court may order that any such copies be provided as paper copies or in such computer-readable form as the Court may specify. Either or both forms may be specified for different classes of documents.
• Legislation to give Courts a `generalised power to give pre-trial directions' (Aronson Recommendation 9) will ensure that Courts have adequate powers to require the parties to use information technology for the efficient conduct of a trial.
• Such powers should include explicit provision for the court to determine, as a matter of procedure, the form in which documents will be provided to the court, including any computerised form.
• Aronson's recommendation 10(b)(i) that the prosecution may be directed to provide `a list of exhibits... that the prosecution intends to have produced at the trial' (as per Victorian Crimes (Fraud) Bill 1992, cl 13(3)(e)) should be supplemented by a provision similar to that in South Australia, whereby the Court may order that any such list may be ordered to be served either in typed form `or in such computer-readable form as the Court may specify, or both'.
• Standards should be developed and published by a national co-ordinating body concerning the format in which images of documents are exchanged, with the aim of encouraging maximum portability of image databases of exhibits. Such standards should be recommendatory, not mandatory. DPPs and other parties should be encouraged to adhere to such standards, and Courts should take such standards into account when making orders concerning the use of imaging technology in trials, and in the form of disclosure of exhibits
• Similar standards should be developed and observed concerning the format in which computer-readable text of statements and other documents is exchanged.
• Where imaging technology is used to handle the exhibits in a trial, the jury should be allowed access to the computerised database of exhibits, and an appropriate retrieval system. The trial judge should ensure that the retrieval software provided to the jury is sufficiently simple and `user friendly', so that the jury can effectively retrieve the exhibits that it needs, and that there is no undue dominance by computer-literate jurors. The trial judge should also be responsible for ensuring that appropriate instructions in the use of the retrieval software is given to the jury, and in a way which does not allow improper access to the jury.
• If the jury is provided with access to the full transcript, (as some have recommended), then it should be able to access that transcript in computerised form (if facilities to do so are otherwise available). The trial judge should have the same responsibilities as in relation to exhibits, but should exercise considerable caution in approving retrieval software for the jury which allows full free-text retrieval of transcript. Steps must be taken to remove from the transcript any part of the proceedings that were not heard before the jury, or to prevent the jury retrieving any part of that transcript.

Ch 7 Presentation graphics and summaries - simplifying complex evidence

• The use of presentation graphics to simplify evidence is recommended for use by both prosecution and defence lawyers.
• In particular, the use of interactive graphics, and the integration of such graphics with images of exhibits, are both techniques which are now available at reasonable cost using standard PC-based equipment. The use of these techniques by the Commonwealth DPP is a leading Australian example which is worthy of emulation in appropriate cases.
• Adoption of reforms concerning charts and summaries (such as Aronson's Recommendations 12-14) is desirable to ensure that computer-generated graphics are admissible.
• A provision such as cl 33 of the Commonwealth Evidence Bill 1991 should be considered in relation to all use of graphics in court, whether the graphics are admitted in evidence in their own right or not. When exercising discretion to admit, the court should consider the other party's access to the necessary software to test any interactive graphics.
• The Court, in exercising discretion in admitting computer-generated summaries as evidence, should take into account the extent to which any lack of access by the other parties to the computerised data and software used in generating the summaries may lead to that evidence having prejudicial, misleading or unfair tendencies or qualities.
• Where the prosecution intends to use graphics or summaries in court, it should consider making available to the defence software or other resources to assist the defence in presenting its own graphics or summaries.
• Governments and legal aid agencies should give consideration to the need for the defence to have resources available for the preparation of presentation graphics and summaries.
• A provision concerning materials which may be provided to the jury , such as Victoria's Crimes (Fraud) Bill 1992, cl 21 (as per Aronson Recommendation 17), should be adopted to ensure that copies of charts, summaries etc may be provided to the jury 'in any form', at the discretion of the judge.
• Such a provision should be amended by adding a further category such as `any aids which allow any of the above materials to be retrieved or displayed by the jury'. This will ensure that the jury can be provided with the hardware and software required to retrieve and display documents, charts etc in computerised form where appropriate.

Ch 8 Improved communication, education, and standards

• A national co-ordinating body is needed to disseminate information, experience and advice concerning the use of information technology by those involved in criminal trials.
• Subject to it obtaining sufficient funds to do so, the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA) should act as the co-ordinating body.
• All of the parties involved in the provision of court facilities and the conduct of trials should be represented on the national co-ordinating body. An Information Technology Committee (IT Committee) of the AIJA, with suitably diverse membership, would provide the appropriate representative structure for the national co-ordinating body.
• A small Information Technology Service (IT Service) should be established as part of the national co-ordinating body, and utilising its administrative resources. It should carry out all of the functions recommended below (subject to its budget), except the development of standards, on which matter it would instead provide expert advice. It should be established with a limited duration (preferably three years) after which the need for the continuation of each of its services would be re-assessed. A national resource collection on Court computerisation should be established, including both international and Australian resources, accessible to all parties involved in Court computerisation.
• A central register of products/technologies which are available to address specific problems of Court computerisation should be established, including details of where they may be inspected in operation. It should be available in print form and as a database. Such a register could be combined with a 'registration of interest' system.
• A national central register of consultants who specialise in various aspects of Court computerisation, their experience, products supported, reference sites, etc, should be maintained.
• The collection's bibliographic index, the register of technologies and the register of consultants, should be searchable from anywhere in Australia, possibly by inclusion as databases in a dial-up system, an/or by distribution on disk or CD-ROM .
• Regular and detailed publications about court computerisation should be published in a variety of forms, and available to all parties involved in Court computerisation.
• An annual or biennial specialised conference on court computerisation should be held, open to all parties involved in Court computerisation.
• Regular meetings for key personnel involved in court computerisation should be encouraged.
• User groups for technologies which have significant use in courts should be given active encouragement.
• The IT Service should operate an electronic `bulletin board' service for use by all users of court technologies.
• Courts, DPPs and other institutions which are identified as sites where particular products/technologies may be inspected in operation should reach agreement as to the basis on which other parties may inspect what they have done. The IT Service should facilitate such access.
• The IT Service should cooperate with one or more Law Schools to utilise computer laboratories for demonstration, teaching and research in the use of court technologies.
• Such court technology laboratories should, where possible, be integrated with Law School Moot Courts to demonstrate technologies in a courtroom setting.
• The IT Service should assist the Association of Litigation Support Managers, and other interested parties, to develop one or more standard sets of data relating to complex trials, so as to facilitate demonstration, teaching or research into the use of document management technologies. It should publicise and assist in distributing the standard data sets.
• The development of courses on computerised litigation support (particularly post-graduate courses) by tertiary institutions, and of continuing legal education courses, should be encouraged and assisted.
• The IT Service should only provide such consultancy services as the IT Committee determines are consistent with its other functions. It may provide consultancy services on a fee-for-service basis. Such services should be limited to preliminary advice and planning, assistance in identifying a range of potentially appropriate products and services, and evaluations, but should not involve system implementation. The development of standards for database compatibility and court technologies is a matter of high priority. The proposed IT Committee of the AIJA should encourage the development of advisory standards to facilitate the maximum portability of data between different hardware and software used in litigation support, and equipment compatibility in courtrooms used for criminal trials. The IT Committee should develop standards itself where appropriate, and in other cases encourage other bodies to develop such standards. Where appropriate, the AIJA should adopt and advocate that others adopt such standards.
• Such standards should include the following matters - (i) text and image portability between databases, (ii) marking-up codes for transcript , (iii) the minimum computer facilities to be provided by court administrations in courtrooms to be used for complex trials, (iv) courtroom networking and display devices and (v) other standards as appear desirable from time to time. Government Departments responsible for court administration should establish at least one courtroom in a State or Territory which is equipped fully to conduct a trial in which any dealings with exhibit images, transcript, presentation of charts or graphs summarising evidence, and remote video presentation of evidence, is through the use of computerised resources. Complex criminal trials should have priority in the use of this courtroom other civil matters.
• National advisory standards should be established as to what are the minimum facilities to be provided in such a courtroom by court administration, and which facilities are normally to be provided by the prosecution or defence in a particular trial.
• National advisory standards should be established for courtroom networking and display devices, to assist compatibility of court-provided cabling, monitors and operating system with prosecution-provided and defence-provided computer facilities to be used in trials. Such standards will require review at least annually.