Seeing is Believing
Increasingly, judges, administrators, and lawyers are confronting the facts that the paratext is redefining the identity of the legally recognized text and is reconstructing the application of law to that text. Assuming that the paratext will not be dismissed outright, legal actors must still determine the respective weights that the different texts deserve.
When the imagery of the paratext hits the eye and ears, the temptation to move off the printed page is likely to become irresistible. This is the "seeing is believing" principle. As discussed earlier, eyes and ears provide more context than the page and print can sustain, and that contextualization can move the viewer in ways that printed text cannot. In spite of the fact that more than five centuries have reinforced a confidence in print, only a highly formalistic textual mindset would endorse the printed page over the more revealing electronic account. Given the force of "seeing is believing," the legal status of paratexts will inevitably evolve from supplemental to primary.
In a grander sense, the conflict between printed texts and paratexts is rooted in our images of justice. Our icon of justice is "Justicia Blindfolded," carrying sword and scale. 191 The common understanding holds that the blindfold signifies Justicia's impartiality; Justicia Blindfolded is not biased by what she cannot see. But this understanding itself is short sighted. The print mindset of the law may have altered our vision of justice and Justicia. Like the printed text, Justicia is largely closed off from context. The textual ideal of the law equates closure with fairness and any disclosure with prejudice. Understandably, then, Justicia Blindfolded is uncomfortable with the "seeing is believing" principle. In fact, her appreciation for its essential truth leads her to guard against it precisely because she considers it a threat to fairness. 192 This archetypal notion is at work in the courtroom when a judge excludes the paratext's revealing and evocative evidencethis, in the name of justice.
