Wandering pets, faux backgrounds, technical glitches, and the like are common during Zoom calls, but it’s a serious matter when it comes to remote testimony in court. In a New Jersey case, a Zoom trial verdict was reversed on appeal because a witness was being coached off-camera, according to an article in the New Jersey Law Journal. The article also refers to a Michigan Zoom trial that was halted after it became apparent that the victim and defendant were appearing from the same apartment. Some judges have become adept at detecting signs of coaching of witnesses who are remote, such as eyes that dart off the screen, the article says, and some judges make the witness pan the camera 360 degrees to check for other people in the room. Our thanks to Ron Seigneur (Seigneur Gustafson LLP) for alerting us to this case.
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