Slashdot Mirror
Michigan Creates Cybercourt
Boone^ writes: "Michigan's Governor John Engler today signed a bill that would create a virtual state court where lawyers could file briefs and make appearances by teleconference. The state Supreme Court will set the rules in the coming months, and District or circuit court judges will be assigned for 3-year terms. How soon until sufficient AI exists to automate the process, and mobile justice can be handed out Judge Dredd style?" We did a story about this when it was first proposed.
this is only for Corprate law. in cases like this, the coperations do not realy need a jury. if both agree to go this rout, they can benefit by having an expedited process....though, I think englers vision is a bit like regan's pie in the sky starwars. the reality is going to be much less than the Idea.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
That's great for the lawyers. Now if they can just get some judges on the circuits who have some understanding of technology.
there is little need for appearances in person in most cases.. perhaps maybe in identity theft trials it would be a good idea though..
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Physical presence is just better for some things.
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
This will never replace the need for real lawyers, and this may even put some clients at a disadvantage. Body language means a lot when convincing a jury or judge, you just dont get that from a TV Screen.
We did a story about this when it was first proposed.
That was when it was first considered, not when it was first proposed, boy wonder.
Toronto has had a 'cybercourt' for several years at the university courthouse.
Michigan Cybercourt has a website, which was not linked from the slashdot story.
The page can be accessed at: here
and for all of you copy 'n pasters: http://www.michigancybercourt.net/
Progress in court automation will of course continue until kR4Ck3rS juDg3 3v3rYtH1n9 4nD Ru13 tH3 w0r1D.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
...that lawyers can now submit their briefs in their briefs? ;-)
Actually a good idea - the article states that it's for business disputes and does not involve a jury. In the past year Slashdot's been filled with articles on the clash between the legal world and the technological world. In all too many cases, by the time the legal system has rendered a verdict, and it's been delayed, and appealed, (and delayed some more, and appealed, and ...), the whole case has become moot (DOJ vs. M$, [RI|MP]AA vs progress, patent disputes, etc.). This could be the beginning of speeding up the courts and bringing them into the 21st century (or at least the 20th century).
[Insert pithy quote here]
The idea of streamlining the legal process sounds nice from an efficiency point of view but misses the purpose of a lot of court procedures. More efficiency doesn't mean people will spend less money getting the courts to resolve their disputes. It means that on the same amount of money, they'll be able to litigate more.
Part of the reason for all the mandatory personal court appearances in the various stages of a lawsuit is to make sure both sides continue to incur legal fees every step of the way. That encourages them to settle their differences and get their cases out of the courts. It actually works fairly well in practice. An awful lot of lawsuits are bogus and the current system is set up to make the litigants ask themselves "is it really worth this hassle and expense?".
If you think we have too many lawsuits now, imagine what it would be like if litigating was easier.
"Ok your honor, *this* is a mouse. Now click. Again.. Good. Now click again. Good. again. faster.. Good. Now, AGAIN! FASTER! CLICK! FASTER! FASTER! CLICK YOU BASTARD! FASTER! THOSE LAWYERS WILL MAKE A FOOL OUT OF YOUR COURTROOM IF YOU CAN'T CLICK FASTER THAN THAT!" ;)
-- Dan
Will be a suit raised by a failed dotcom that has a patent that gives them exclusive rights to the online provision of justice.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
The court is expected to cost $250,000 to $500,000.
Makes you wonder what kind of system they'll be running, and who would set it up for them. Seems like a great place for open source, but something about that $500,000 makes me think otherwise...
If this is a sign of things to come, what will happend to my beloved People's Court, Divorce Court, Sex Court...
Tom Shanks stars as a happy-go-lucky, go-getting armed robber who starts stalking a resident in his apartment block when a poorly configured Judicial mailserver spams pardons to the inhabitants of a maximum security penitentiary...
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
A related story found at the top right of the michigan cybercourt site can be found here.
Cut six judges so that one judge can basically test something new? Is that dumb or what?
-- Dan
This raises a lot of concerns with me about the sanctity of off-the-record conversations in legal proceedings. How can one side ensure that the conversation they're having in "virtual chambers" with the judge and the opposing counsel is not being recorded?
Don't get me started on man-in-the-middle attacks...
Just my $0.45 (it would have been $0.02, but Microsoft stuffed my PayPal account).
They that would sacrifice their
Since I understand most documentation is now requested on a floppy or CD-ROM, why not go ahead and file it electronically?
OTOH, pleading a case before an electronic judge sounds like a loser to me. When you are in front of someone, you can read them -- what do they like or dislike about what you're saying, what do they find persuasive -- and adjust the brief in real time. I've yet to see that kind of instantaneous feedback in a videoconference. May as well do it all in written submissions, phone in and ask, "do you have any questions?"
Currently the court system is truly straining and something definitely needs to be done to ease the burden. Of course this could also backfire leaving a lot of openings about mistrials etc....(I am guessing, IANAL) I would think they should classify court cases by impact:
Low level...tried online
medium level...can be tried online if both paties consent
High level....only in person
I hope this works out well.
Cheers
Teleconferencing equipment, actual telco charges, tech support... I think this actually opens up a new can of worms when it comes to actually billing the client.
"Old man yells at systemd"
- Punishment: Your program loops infinitely out of control.
- Fine $$$: Get your RAM taken away.
- Death Sentence: Blue Screen.
Oh wait, windows comes with all three.
Not sure where the bizarre comments about AI and automating the court process came from ... but this just seems like a logical and justifiable extension of the current use of remote attendence at hearings. I'm not sure if it is the same in the US or not, but in the UK at least it is possible for witnesses to give evidence from outside the courtroom by TV in cases where intimidation of the witness is likely - usually in rape or chile abuse cases. The court can see the witness, but the witness can not see, and therefore is less influenced by, the courtroom and especially the defendent.
Hogsback
The court won't have a jury and will handle only business disputes involving at least $25,000. Cases could be removed to the circuit court, and decisions could be appealed to the state Court of Appeals.
In other words, it is for business litigation only, and if any party doesn't want to use the cyber court they can file a motion and move to a regular court.
This seems similar to small claims court....special rules to make things easy in a narrow but common set of circumstances. And if one party isn't satisfied with the way the special court works, they can move to a regular court.
Sometime between the first and second impacts, when the Magi are programmed by Ritsuko's mother. Then we'll have the three forces of Mother, Woman, and Scientist to rule our entire nation. (If you haven't watched enough Neon Genesis: Evangelion [animefu.com]) :)
This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "circuit" court. :)
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
All we need now is Cyberjails and Cyberbaliffs.
This is a great example of either nerd-paranoia or journalistic exaggeration. All the "cybercourt" is doing is taking technology solutions from business and applying them to bureaucracy. The court will not handle criminal or civil cases, only business cases involving sums of more than $25,000US. The Small Business Assocation of Michigan supports the new procedures.
Even the term "cybercourt" is hype. It's a loaded name intended to, first, make Michigan look tech-nice, and second, to cloud the system's basic simplicity and justify whatever the government spent to build it. It's idiotic to compare Judge Dredd-style future AI with a few video cams and electronic form shuffling. The only advancement here is one of marketing... which I would mock as feeble marketing, if it didn't apparently succeed enough to send the softer-minded Slashdotters into a Chicken-Little-like tizzy.
The sky is not falling. Microsoft will not eat you. Our courts have not been compromised by cam whores.
. . . . . . . [awg] http://acidwriting.org
I can see it now. You're making that last appeal for clemency from the Governor by email when the system crashes. You get back on-line only to discover that your licence agreement for Microsoft .COURT is only good for 4 appeals. You're still downloading the linux alternative KJustice when the warden reboots your nervous system.
I guess when I get an illegal operation on my computer I must go to Cybercourt to attend a hearing on it.
Lawyers can make appearances by video conference... hmmm, this seems a little inefectual with regard to comonly accepted forms of legal argumentation. Granted, at the moment this forum is only available for certain pretrial motions and delivery of briefs but this opens a door which will lead to full trials being conducted in this sort of forum. A great deal of the usefulness of a lawyer is his/her ability to be persuasive on an indevidual level almost more than on a legal level. Body language and other behaviors have a significant impact on this effectiveness and videoconferencing -while better than audio conferencing- precludes use of numerous argumentitive tools normaly available to jurists.
Certainly this will be of lesser impact in bench trials but what will come of this medium when someone decides to hold a jury trial in this medium? We can only hope the technology takes significant strides before some judge decides to conduct a jury trial this way.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
All rise (where ever you are).
Michigan 1st cyber-district court now in session.
The Honorable Max Headroom presiding.
"You may-may-may be seated."
Jonathan
This is quite possibly the most unfunny stuff I have ever read on Slashdot. Way to try to get +1 funny, you herd animal.
How long will it be until punks start running bots to improve their chances in cybercourt? PunkBusters may have a new market in this...
before a cyber-judge. How do you plead?
"Not Guilty, your Honor!"
"I throw myself at the mercy of the court."
"Does it really matter?"
apologies to all those that still remember the exact dialog... =P
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
1. Bored cyber-jurors alt-tabbing between the trial and pornography.
2. Mistrials caused by BSOD
3. Microsoft anti-trust cases being presided over by 'MS Justice XP' software.
Going back to point 1 though... Is anybody else looking forward to jury duty?
:)
Due process sucks in the case of rapists, muderers, robbers and other violent or socipathic criminals. These people should be shot on site. I watch COPS and I see these piles of "human" refuse and just think... man if only those people were killed the VERY FIRST time they ever commited a felony there wouldn't have been 10 more victims or that kids mom wouldn't have been raped and killed. Fuck criminals... they aren't human and don't deserve to live.
This obsession with AI has got to stop. I'm going to go on a limb here and assume the following about AI.
1. Anything that is truly intelligent would NOT enjoy performing human's menial tasks.
2. Anything that seems like a "can I?", before a "should I?" is probably not a good thing.
3. AI judging us according to the law, oh boy I can't wait for that to happen. What happens when there is a bug or malfunction and no one catches it...oops.
Not to forget the "Turing test" which is rather absurd as proof of AI.
Seems like the department really should be "justice plugged." Justice was well unplugged before this, no?
Aren't you dead?
How soon until someone from the boondocks contests this with failure to provide "equal protection under the law" because they don't have access to:
a computer
a fast enoug computer
a compatible computer
"The court finds the defendant, with the IBM PC AT with CGA, guilty. We sentence him to 5 years of Microsoft Customer Support."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
New AOL Slogan: "You've got jail!"
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
It would work like this: Say you have a dispute over an eBay transaction with somebody who lives 3000 miles away on the other side of the country. You go to your local [main] post office and file a small claims case. The post office serves the defendant for you by certified mail. On the day set for hearing, you go back to your post office and you are sent to a Federal Small Claims hearing room which has a camera, two video screens, and a flatbed scanner. One video monitor is teleconferenced to the defendant's local post office and shows the defendant, the other screen shows the face of a Federal small claims judge or magistrate (who could be physically located anywhere). The judge hears both sides and renders a decision just like in a live small claims court. The court's judgment could be enforced nationwide. Any documents that need to be shown to the judge are placed on the scanner. You set the jurisdictional limit at say $5000, same as in a California small claims court. No lawyers allowed, just like in a real small claims court (unless one of the parties happens to be a lawyer). With a system like this, it would be convenient and speedy to litigate your garden variety eBay-type dispute as well as lots of other interstate disputes that are inconvenient to hear in real courts 'cause of the distance involved. This would also prevent big corporations from taking advantage of consumers with those pesky "forum selection" contract clauses that wipe-out consumers' legal rights by forcing them to sue in some distant forum like King County, Wash.
Once the right to face your accuser meant something. Our nation was forged by men who journeyed for days to debate one another in the flesh, about the ways in which our government should take shape. The founding documents of this country were forged in the crucible of human interaction, not by pixellated images on glowing monitors! Soon, jurors will muse over the fates of their fellow human beings from the comfort of their homes talking with one another in "chat rooms", never having seen in person the poor souls on whom they sit in judgement. Life-or-death decisions will be as simple as a Slashdot poll.
Anyone who has experienced the gripping film Twelve Angry Men will know in their hearts the importance of human interaction in the process if deliberative justice. We as citizens of this country need to take a hard look at what's happening here. We must take back our irreplacable Third Estate from the hands of greedy corporations more concerned with lining their own pockets than with the true meaning of justice.
...michael always feel the need to point out that the story he is posting has already been run before?
blog
Look out 2600!
to the phrase Circuit Court Judge
Great, instead of ads on the back of the yellow pages for the local ambulance chasers, soon I'll be getting Lawyer-On-Line disks in the mail...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Good point, but the incursion of Legal Fees has been used by the big boys in order to kill the up and coming competition.
Hence Creative Labs vs. Aureal.
Maybe with the lessening of Legal fees, the smaller companies can now defend itself.
With the horror stories we hear in Europe
about the US legal system (or lack of it) what does this do to help things ?
There was a Max Headroom episode similar to this. I can still hear the one lawyer whining to the video-judge "But you haven't even evaluated my floppy disk!"
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
My first reaction (to "cybercourt") was that it would be awsome to have have a place to go when you need a judge that has a clue what a web link is, and possibly even (dare I suggest it?) able to understand source code.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I would like to see this cybercourt idea evolve into a system with sufficient AI to listen to legal claims, ask questions, even render judgements in simple cases. Or a cyber lawyer smart enough to compete with F. Lee Bailey. Hey, it works with chess! How about a legal harassment/frivolous lawsuit filter that all cases would have to be pass before burdening the human-driven system. Even just a publicly available AI lawyer that answers legal questions reliably would be a real boon to the common citizen, who already paid to get the laws written and can't afford to pay a consultant to explain them.
Now you can sit back on the couch and argue a case with a Bud... (in an opaque glass of course... ;)
El Paso County Texas has been doing this for several years (since '96 I believe) using FVC teleconferencing system. See the this document for the proposal. They use it for criminal pre-trial hearings because of the distance from the jail to the courthouse. They also use it within the sheriffs department as well.
"The verdict is guilty. Please remain where you are, a police escort will arrive shortly to escort you to prison."
:P I don't want to pay them at all, but that's another story. ;)
"Ah, damn. Guess I should wait around here."
*snicker* Yeah, I know, it doesn't really work that way, but it'd be funny, to say the least.
I think, however, that this is further proof that we are spiralling ever-closer to being a truly networked society. While I don't expect to see people ordering pizzas and having them pop out of the floppy drives anytime soon, I do expect we'll see more things like this done online.
Think about it - we can shop online, we can pay bills online, we can communicate online.. We can do a lot of things online already. I think the government putting more services online is a good thing.
I, for example, would love to, this June, when my driver's license expires, just log on to a website to have it renewed. It'd save me a lot of time, as I wouldn't have to wait in horribly long lines.
Of course, one thing I'd like not to do is pay my taxes online.
It has always bothered me when people confuse justice and the law. Justice is a subjective concept, something that takes into account emotional ideas and uses subjective deduction to arrive at a conclusion. For the most part the United State's 'Justice' system does little more than interpret laws with a disregard for 'justice'. The legislators have enacted laws that severely restrict Judge's ability to prescribe just punishments or awards for nearly any case that comes before them. How many of you think casual drug law violators should be sent to prison for years? How many think that 'hackers' should be held without bond? These are examples of our 'Justice' system turning a blind eye towards the true meaning of the very word that defines it.
To assume that an AI could distribute justice, is akin to assuming that an AI could teach, or parent. Yes, and AI can help, but the true responsibility should ALWAYS remain with a judge, a human being that can weigh the subjective circumstances and look at the whole picture, not just that that is shown in their courtroom.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
That soon I can appear in court as the defendant by way of tele-conference and then serve my time in jail the same way?
I'm all over that!
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Doubtful. They'll just have more suits to defend.
Besides Creative Labs vs. Aureal we'll also have
J. Random Idiot vs. Aureal.
If a big company wants to make you spend money,
they can do that through endless depositions and
discovery, no matter how quickly the courts
themselves operate.
[judge] How does the defendant plea?
[h4x0r] a/s/l ???
[judge] How do you plea?
[h4x0r] What is your FTP passw3rd?
[judge] Are you trying to plea bargain?
[h4x0r] what kinda l33t w4r3z you have? 0 day?!
* judge kicks h4x0r for contempt!
(EOF)
Putting courts online is what I do. The biggest problems that we encounter are a lack of electronic standards. There?s legalXML and others, but most of the are not finished yet, or not broad ranging enough to truly useful. Michigan is by far and away in the lead in putting things online though. They have the benefit of an in house development system. So that $200K+ that you saw is mostly staying in the state. Most of the other states out there use private contractors, which work nothing alike, nor is there a spirit of cooperation. Which makes developing standards a pain. After a while most courts tend to adapt their ?internal standards? to the system that they use. Which means that when you get right down to it, two counties right next to each other will use complete different means of case tracking. In some areas such as civil cases. There are no standards in the way a case is actually moved through the court. And how dispositions are recorded much less followed to insure that they have been satisfied. It?s a system designed by lawyers that has been allowed to adapt and change unchecked for 200 years. The legal code is full of kludge. It may never get organized enough.
sorry for ther ramble
-jj-
M@rc1@Cl@rK: 0Bj3c710|\|, j00r h0|\|0r. |-|3@r5@y.
1337_Judge: 5u57@1nxord
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1337_Judge: 517 d0\/\/n & 5hutzUp. D15 15 **MY** k0r7r00m @nd 1 0wnz j00.
*J_K0kr@n has left #courtroom1
*J_K0kr@n has joined #courtroom1
J_Kokr@n: 50rry, @0L K1x0rz m3 0ff. 51r, r3qu357 f0r r3c355 u|\|71l 1 g37z @n 31337 k0|\|3x10n
1337_Judge: P3rm15510n gr@n73d. C0ur7 15 @dj0urn3d unt1l fur7hur n071c3.
*1337_Judge has left #courtroom1
*M@rc1@Cl@rK has left #courtroom1
*J_K0kr@n has left #courtroom1
*1337_Bailiff (admin) has kicked everyone from #courtroom1
*1337_Bailiff (admin) has closed the channel #courtroom1
Does this remind anyone of the very first 2 hour episode of Lexx?
Can you imagine an eliza lawyer? Har!
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
How soon until sufficient AI exists to automate the process
Well...the AI for the way cyber-cases are currently resolved would be pretty easy.
public int decideCase(Plaintiff plaintiff, Defendant defendant)
{
if(plaintiff.getNetWorth() > defendant.getNetWorth())
{
return(Judgement.PLAINTIFF);
}
else
{
return(Judgement.DEFENDANT);
}
}
Incidently, this AI will also work for WIPO disputes as well. There's even rumors of this code being used in Washington by lawmakers when trying to determine what legislation to pass.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
How soon until sufficient AI exists to automate the process, and mobile justice can be handed out Judge Dredd style?
What do you mean? Computer AI has been capable of making the kind of uninformed and un-insightful decisions judges make for at lease 20 years.
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
I live in Michigan, and got arrested a few months back, for a traffic violation that I had forgotten to pay on. (doh)
After sitting in jail for about 4 hours, I was escorted to a room about the size of a walk-in closet, that contained a TV and a microphone. The judge was in a courtroom 15 miles north of the holding cell, and we discussed the issue at hand via a 56k video conference. pretty cool, a bit jerky, but the resolution wasn't bad for a 13 inch TV screen.
so parts of this have been going already - the district i was arrested in shares their court facilities with the neighboring district, so rather than spend the money to transport people around and around all over town, they just get a live modem link. it's pretty neat. of course, my head was spinning from the whole "geek in jail" experience, so i don't remember much else about it.. but i was impressed that people were actually putting tech to good use.
Then they even FAXed the documents for my release over to the station, and let me go.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
We created an electronic filing system (Test system here) that's been in continuous use since March 1, 1999 for all criminal and juvenile cases in North Western New Mexico. I wrote a goodly chuck of the code.
And we were not the first. There are quite a few systems in use around the country.
The unique part of the Michigan system is the teleconferencing ability. And that's an even older idea.
Peace,
Marty Halvorson
New Mexico Supreme Court
Judicial Information Division