Just Showing the Video of the Incident Doesn't Work
If you have a dash cam video of a car accident, a store surveillance video of a slip and fall, or a security surveillance video of shooting on a property just showing the video may not work with your jurors. Jurors if left to their own devices, their eyes and minds may play tricks on them and they may see something that is not on the video. It is better to incorporate portions of the video that are highlighted, with informational slides. Here are some tips to better enhance the effectiveness of a Video.
About the Property/Area
** Obtain a crime grid or crime analysis report of the surrounding area (shooting / negligent security case). You want to show the foreseeability of the incident. This may also include highlight police calls and police reports. If you are able to obtain depositions about other incidents on the same exact property, then better.
** If you are dealing with a slip and fall accident, get pictures of the property and the area that your client fell. You want to give a back story to the jury of whether the locale is well taken care of or abandoned.
**If it is a car accident, show aerial photographs of the intersection and/or road. Get photographs of the street view of the local of the incident. You may even want to to take video of how the interaction lights change to establish the traffic pattern.
Of course after abstaining the above-reference items, you want to highlight, label and direct the attention of the jurors to certain points on each slide. We do not want to leave them to their biases and own devices. The key is to leave as little as possible to interpretation.
Video of Incident
Break up the video for the jurors. Highlight key individuals and objects. Label them accordingly. If you can zoom into important objects such as a clock to show time, liquid on the floor to show a transient liquid, a traffic light to show who had the right away, etc. the better.
APVisuals has over 15 years of providing video litigation services to lawyers and law firms in Miami, Broward and West Palm Beach. We have experience in not only downloading surveillance footage from security systems, but also in editing video to highlight certain events, individuals and allegations in a case. If you are in need of video litigation services, please contact us to discuss We would love to work with you in the future.
