Notes from the National College

New Trial Visuals Book and CD

By Ronald H. Clark, Senior Training Counsel, National College of District Attorneys

The National College of District Attorneys recently released both a book and CD designed to enable prosecutors to have the best in today’s trial visuals.

Trial visuals have evolved from hand drawn charts to the gripping computer slide shows. This evolution is the most significant change in prosecution trial practice in the last three decades. Technological advancements, including the LCD projector, the document camera, and most of all computer software programs (PowerPoint), have made trial visuals more compelling than ever before. Also, both studies and prosecutorial experience have established that today’s jurors retain far more of what they see than what they hear.

The National College’s new book, entitled Visuals for Today’s Prosecutors, was authored by Ronald E. Bowers, a prosecutor for over 35 years who has been head of the Trial Support Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Visuals for Today’s Prosecutors covers all visual formats and places particular emphasis on poster charts and graphics and computerized slide shows. In this book, you will find hundreds of proven effective trial visuals that can be replicated or modified for your trials. This comprehensive book explains how to make these visuals and how to use them in trial. Information-packed chapters cover visuals for all stages of trial from opening statement to rebuttal closing argument. Additionally, the book reviews the law on visuals, explains how to establish and maintain a visual aids unit in the prosecutor’s office and how to use the computer program in the companion CD.

Visuals shown in the book are contained in VIP (Visuals Improving Prosecution), a CD companion to the book. The VIP CD contains a computer software program with ready-to-use templates of visuals in this book and more. With these sample visuals, you can easily create visuals for your cases. The VIP CD provides additional training on visuals as well as the valuable instructional material PowerPoint for Prosecutors, explaining how prosecutors can utilize PowerPoint to create visuals.

To order the book, Visuals for Today’s Prosecutors and the VIP CD or for more details, either call the National College at (803) 544-5005 or visit its Web site at www.law.sc.edu/ncda/.