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Abstract
The federal courts in the United States are intentionally insulated. Despite numerous congressional attempts at recording and broadcasting court procedures, cameras had historically been banned from the federal courtroom, until 2020. The key player in federal judicial procedure, the Judicial Conference, has maintained a strict stance regarding keeping cameras out of the federal courts. The COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for the federal courts to experiment with technology in criminal cases, as Congress authorized the use of remote proceedings in specified criminal hearings through passage of the CARES Act. The ways in which the federal courts pivoted to a remote setting in order to preserve judicial legitimacy while continuing to hear criminal cases have been previously unexplored. I posit that technology can be used advantageously to benefit all criminal defendants under certain circumstances, akin to the benefits derived from use of legal resources as dictated by Robert A. Kagan’s adversarial legalism theory. Through interviews with sitting district court judges in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, I reveal the procedures utilized by the bench to protect criminal rights during criminal hearings held remotely from March of 2020 to May of 2021. While judges appreciate the adaptability of remote technology, they overwhelmingly believe that the high stakes in criminal cases demand the formalities of a physical courtroom rather than a “CourtZoom.”