Law and the Image

Catalog description

When we represent our experience today, we do so as much through images as words. When we seek to persuade, we offer photographs, charts, and graphs. When we witness misconduct, we pull out our smartphones. Social media has emerged as a powerful court of public opinion. AI has made it easy to generate realistic images out of thin air. And as images saturate the representation of our experience, they are increasingly part of legal practice. The power of an image often lies in its apparent simplicity: we know it when we see it. But how much of what we see is produced by the biases and expectations -- the habits of viewing -- that we bring to the encounter? What is left out when an infographic distills information for us? Lawyers and judges have tended to treat certain kinds of images as unmediated representations of reality, even though neuroscience, empirical research, and cultural theory all refute this so-called reality effect. Such naïve realism maps on to an ideal of definitive proof embedded in the adversary system. It also haunts our efforts to adapt legal practice to visual persuasion in ways that are consistent with our rule of law values. This interdisciplinary seminar tracks the legal reception of images from confusion about the admissibility of photographs in the late 19th century (is it like a drawing? is it like eyewitness testimony?) to the use of film in the IMT trial at Nuremberg in 1945-1946 and the proliferation of televised trials and trial-themed entertainment in the 1990s to the frequent and strategic deployment of visual media in pretrial and litigation practice today. We will also consider the role of images in areas of doctrine (like privacy, qualified immunity, and freedom of speech) and applications in practice (like contracts and client communications). Elements used in grading: Class participation, attendance, and written assignments.…