Consider this vision of justice in the year 2020: an attorney enters the facts of a case into a computer. Within minutes, a perfect, dispassionate decision is reached by a machine that has replaced the judge.
Offenders found guilty of violent sex crimes are not punished by spending time behind bars, but rather by taking medicine to chemically alter deviant behavior.The innocence of an accused person is not presumed.
Out-of-court settlements of disputes are the norm; trials the exception.
Divorces are handled by an administrative agency - like insurance claims.
Because of cost, the death penalty doesn't exist.
Juries that have been persuaded at times by an attorney's theatrics, rather than the facts of the case, have been replaced by panels of professionals on various subjects.
This is just one vision of America's justice system 30 years from now, concocted by judges attending the first national Conference on the Future and the Courts.
The lofty goal of the conference: to better provide effective, fair and responsive justice to all Americans in a future filled with expected but undefined change.
Utah was lauded as one of the first states to begin planning the future of its justice system through the yearlong "Doing Utah Justice" project.
Looking to the future doesn't come naturally to judges. Every day they base decisions on a 200-year-old document - the Constitution. The word "precedent" drives the court.
The Honorable John F. Daffron Jr., of Virginia's state court, said Saturday that judges "look into the future through a rear-view mirror." Jurists take pride in providing continuity to society. They react to, instead of initiating, change.
But quoting Yogi Berra, Daffron warned, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else."
The enormity and complexity of challenges facing the nation's court system reflect society's diversified problems. At a time when access to the courts is decreasing, expectations of the courts are intensified. Society seeks answers to questions ranging from ethical dilemmas related to life termination and reproduction to trends in computer science.
The judiciary has been described by judges at this conference as "endangered," "increasingly brittle," and as "a system eroding in a climate of rapid change."
Describing justice as a "scarce commodity," Professor Michael E. Tigar of the University of Texas School of Law suggested changes to improve fairness in the courts. He said lawyers should be required to "give something back" through pro bono work representing the poor.
Judges should get rid of cases without merit. "People with resources can keep churning the system," he said. Big law firms with a million dollars to spend on litigation will spend that much and more on senseless discovery procedures. Something is wrong with a system where "those with the most money go to the front of the line," said Tigar.
Even though the specific scenarios of the year 2020 can't be defined, David I. Tevelin, executive director of the State Justice Institute in Virginia, said judges can guide the future. While in 1960 no one would have predicted the devastating effects of the AIDS virus, jurists could have been better prepared to handle the crisis if the relationship between the medical profession and the law had been more clearly defined.
Nationally known futurist James A. Daytor, of the University of Hawaii, urged judges to "invent" the future or to achieve their vision of a "preferred" future. Daytor believes the future court system will be "leaner and not meaner." Judges must be willing to "expose the naked emperor" by admitting the flaws in the justice system.
"Any useful statement about the future should appear ridiculous. If people don't laugh and call you stupid, then you probably haven't predicted the future," Daytor said.