Don't misunderstand me; I love Zoom. This technology has given us back our most precious resource: time. We no longer need to factor in hours of driving back and forth to different courts. Not having to hunt for parking feels, "oh, so good." Courthouse lines are a thing of the past, and I hear no one complain, "I really miss metal detectors." And yes, needy clients don't have the luxury of holding attorneys hostage in courthouse hallways to repeat their story ad nauseam.

The ability to appear in multiple courts (miles apart) within minutes is straight out of Star Trek. Until now, an attorney could never have appeared in Bergen County at 9 a.m. and make it to Ocean County by 9:15. Previously an attorney could never appear in half a dozen municipal courts in under an hour. Indeed, today's Zoom link is the modern version of Captain Kirk's famous 1970s catchphrase, "Beam me up, Scotty."

Another benefit of virtual advocacy is that it dramatically decreases everyone's stress. Whether you are a defense attorney, prosecutor, judge or defendant, virtual court proceedings take place during highly organized and structured appointments. Defense attorneys and prosecutors must discuss the discovery and evidentiary issues before each Zoom session. As a result, virtual appearances only consist of placing the case status on the record and receiving a return date. Gone are the days of waiting in a line of 30 attorneys to speak to the prosecutor. The pressure is off. Everyone does their homework ahead of time at a comfortable and stress-free pace.

Defendants avoid the anxiety of being in an unfamiliar and intimidating courtroom. They join the Zoom meeting in the comfort of their home, car or workplace. They are used to communicating with friends and family via Skype or Facetime, so they feel right at home in virtual court. They save money because they don't have to take time off from work. And, just like everyone else, they don't have to drive countless miles, thus saving on expenses like gas, parking and tolls.

Virtual court has been a blessing for many of the reasons I outlined above. However, Zoom rooms can never replace courtrooms. Zoom sessions are efficient and expedient when dealing with all pretrial issues leading up to detention hearings, FROs and trials. Still, virtual meetings fail our client's procedural and substantive due process rights in many ways.

As a practical matter, defendants cannot confer with their defense attorneys and vice versa. Yes, there are ways to communicate with your client remotely via text messaging or online chatting, but the communication suffers on many levels. There is only so much information that attorneys and their clients can transmit during a Zoom trial. Nothing compares to the real-time interactions with a client on good old-fashioned legal pads. Trials take place in real-time, and every second counts. In the Zoom context, an attorney cannot lean over and whisper with his client or defense expert to gather critical ammunition for his/her cross-examination of a plaintiff or State's witness.

Zoom trials open the door for cheating. A judge can order a witness not to have any documents or notes in front of them while testifying, but a witness can ignore the court's order, and there is no way to protect against this. There are no safeguards in place to prevent a witness from reading from a script. In a courtroom, a witness takes the witness box empty-handed. A judge would never allow a witness to testify while holding an outline or script. Regardless of how firmly a judge insists that a witness cannot have any paperwork in front of him/her, there's absolutely no way to know.

Witnesses can buy themselves time when being cross-examined. All a witness has to do to avoid answering tough cross-examination questions is to fake a "technical issue." They do not experience technical issues with their video/audio equipment until the tough questions arrive. Suddenly, their screen freezes or their microphone gets muted and wouldn't you know it; they have the perfect response to the question that minutes before paralyzed their ability to recollect.

Technical issues are real, and they adversely affect a defendant's right to Due Process. On average, Zoom hearings involve a minimum of five participants. For example, in FRO hearings, there's a judge, plaintiff, plaintiff's attorney, defendant and defendant's attorney. When five parties are involved in a Zoom hearing, technical issues find fertile ground to blossom, and the consequences can be devastating. If an attorney's mic is malfunctioning, he/she cannot make timely objections. As a result, protecting the record for appeal becomes a nightmare. If a witness' testimony is interrupted because of a poor connection, then a judge can easily miss or misunderstand critical evidence. Justice requires that judges accurately assess the credibility of the parties in arriving at their decision. Technical issues fetter a fact-finder's ability to evaluate credibility accurately.

Lastly, there is no way to guarantee the sequestration of witnesses. Often, two or more witnesses share a home. A non-sequestered witness can easily hear the questions asked and answered by a testifying witness and adjust his/her testimony accordingly. Judges do their best to sequester witnesses, but as Francis Bacon said, "opportunity makes a thief."

Alan Peyrouton is a criminal lawyer at Peyrouton Law in Hackensack.