Stephanie Parker delivers closing arguments for R.J. Reynolds in Janice Rounds' suit claiming the company's concealment of smoking's dangers led to her husband's nicotine addiction and cancer. Jurors Tuesday found in favor of R.J. Reynolds.

Daytona Beach, FL—Jurors Tuesday found tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds not liable for the lung cancer that killed a Florida hospital worker who smoked for more than 35 years. Rounds v. R.J. Reynolds, 2013-32607-CICI.

Cameras in the courtroom have led a sea-change in legal journalism and are revolutionizing attorneys' trial preparation and practice. 

For more than 50 years pro athletes and coaches have studied video footage, of themselves and their opponents, finding new and sometimes hidden insights that translate to a win on game day. The practice is now so ingrained and sophisticated that film study is built into a team’s daily training schedule, and a quarterback like the Denver Broncos’ Peyton Manning can dial up video on his tablet and dissect a play from three decades earlier, all while he rehabs an injury.

But despite higher stakes and competition that’s just as keen, many practicing trial attorneys have never studied video.

Why?

Update 1/25/16:

Atlanta—Jurors Monday morning cleared a pair of anesthesiologists of malpractice claims stemming from a surgical procedure that left an Alpharetta woman with life-long brain damage.  Palacios v. Kaufman, 13EVO17275.  

Richard Diaz says a decades-long tobacco industry conspiracy led to James "J.R." Ewing's nicotine addiction and respiratory disease. Ewing died in 2009, and his wife, Doris Ewing, is suing cigarette makers R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. 

Pensacola, FL—Attorneys drew battle lines over the reasons behind a long-time smoker’s respiratory disease as trial opened last week in a suit by his widow against the makers of the cigarettes her husband smoked.  Ewing v. R.J. Reynolds, 2009-CA-002791.

Experts are often the most crucial witnesses in a trial: their testimony, and how they present it to a jury, can turn a verdict. In this series, CVN analyzes the nation’s most important experts, their testimony, and their impact on a trial’s verdict. Today we look at one of the nation's leading thoracic surgeons.