AALS Hot Topic Program

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Session Type: AALS Hot Topic Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: New York Hilton Midtown

Room: Petit Trianon

Floor: Third Floor

Video has become a hot topic in the area of criminal justice as a result of the increasing use of cellphones to capture interactions between police and black citizens who wind of losing their lives during and after such encounters. The video footage, shot and widely disseminated on social media, of the treatment of Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, and Tamir Rice, among others, has sparked widespread social activism best exemplified by #BlackLivesMatter. Video, however, is more than the source of evidence in criminal cases. It is a tool of advocacy as reported in the national media like the New York Times. Sentencing mitigation, victim impact, and clemency are now the subject of legal advocacy videos made in connection with or for introduction in criminal proceedings. Furthermore, videos are widely used to support social justice campaigns aimed at promoting criminal justice reforms at the local and national level.

A group of law faculty, with both scholarly and practical expertise, have come together to discuss and promote the teaching and actual production of, visual advocacy in law schools. Members of the self-described “Working Group on the Production of Visual Advocacy and Scholarship in Law Schools (PVAS Working Group)” share the view that in the future the skillful and effective utilization of audiovisual digital media will be a measure of lawyer competency. Therefore, law schools should begin to offer media skills training to enable their graduates not only to advocate on behalf of their clients, but also to perform their ethical obligation to translate the complexities of the law for lay audiences and to promote greater understanding of and accountability by legal institutions, including the profession.

We will discuss the art of, and legal limitations on, capturing and interpreting candid police cellphone videos, as well as strategies for producing effective sentencing mitigation, clemency, and social justice videos. Actual examples of such works will be screened and discussed.