Virtual reality robots could help teleport juries to crime scenes

Juries are seldom allowed to visit crime scenes. There are exceptions, usually in difficult, high-profile murder cases such as the O.J Simpson trial in 1995 in the US and the Jill Dando murder trial in 2001 in the UK. But asking jurors to become fact finders in this way comes with myriad problems, from possible biases to the logistical and security challenges of taking them to the crime scene. A site visit by the Dando jury needed a convoy of five vehicles to transport the jurors, lawyers, judge and their police escorts to the scene, passing through police barricades surrounded by neighbours, journalists and other spectators. It became a media spectacle.