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Bail Reform

How to Watch a Live Virtual Courtroom First Appearance Broadcast

First appearance hearings conducted in Superior Court are streamed LIVE from various locations around the state for the public to view on a computer, tablet or smartphone, generally during non-business hours. During normal business hours (Monday – Friday) you can watch a first appearance hearing in the county courthouse. When first appearances are held on weekends, holidays, or during scheduled or unscheduled closings, the hearings may be available on the NJ Courts website. Check the locations on our website for when and how to watch the proceedings in each county.

See the Virtual Courtroom Streaming Requirements.

  1. To view the live stream of a Virtual Courtroom first appearance hearing, launch a browser (i.: Internet Explorer, Edge, Safari, Chrome) and go to the following address: www.njcourts.gov/public/
  1. Locate the time and details of the first appearance hearing you are interested in by clicking on the [+] next to the county name. Click the link “Click here to watch”.
    Screenshot of First Appearance webpage
  1. You will be directed to the Virtual Courtroom Landing page.  There you will see a list of upcoming first appearance hearings available to watch listed by county. The Virtual Courtrooms first appearance hearings that have already started will be in the “Happening Today” section of the screen.
    Note: You may need to refresh your screen if the start time of the hearing has passed and the Virtual Courtroom does not appear in the “Happening Today” section of the screen.
    Note: If the Virtual Courtroom has not started it will display the start time. If it has started, you will see “LIVE” in a red box along the bottom of the screen. You may need to refresh the page to see the latest information. First appearance hearings are NOT recorded for later viewing. See examples below.

Screenshot of Live Virtual courtroom webpage showing controls

Note: There is a limitation of seven (7) live broadcasts on the main screen. If you do not see the First Appearance hearing you are looking for, you may click on Recordings and Events or use the search utility for the particular county you are interested in.

Screenshot crop showing events options

To see all the scheduled Virtual Courtrooms for the day, click the 3 Bars next to Recordings and Events. Then, click on Events.

Screenshot crop showing search boxUse the search bar in the top right corner to search for first appearance broadcasts available for viewing. Type in the county name in the search box and hit Enter on the keyboard.

Virtual Meeting RoomIf the county you searched for has a scheduled Virtual Courtroom First Appearance hearing on that day, it will appear as a thumbnail picture on the screen. The start time will also be displayed on the screen.  You may need to refresh the screen if the actual time has passed the scheduled start time. If the Virtual Courtroom has started, you will see “LIVE” in a red box at the bottom of the screen.

  1. Once you have located the Virtual Courtroom you wish to view and verified that it has started (you will see it listed as “LIVE”), click the Play button.

Screenshot showing play button

  1. After starting the Virtual Courtroom, you can hover over the image and find the icons that will change the volume and make the Virtual Courtroom appear in full screen mode.

Screenshot showing volume button

  1. When the Virtual Courtroom first appearance hearing has concluded the video stream will end.
    Note: Depending on your Internet connection speed, you may experience some buffering during the video stream.

Screenshot showing buffering message

NJ Judiciary Virtual Courtroom Streaming Requirements

  • Speakers
  • Internet Connection
  • Computer Specifications for Standard Definition experience
    • PC Intel Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz or faster
    • PC AMD Athlon 3.0 GHz or faster
    • PC Intel Centrino Mobile Processor 1.8 GHz or faster
    • Mac with Intel Core Duo 1.8 GHz or faster
    • Netbook Intel Atom Processor 1.6 GHz or faster
    • 1 GB of RAM or more
  • Operating systems
    • Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later
    • Windows Vista™, Windows 20XX, Windows 7™ (32 and 64 Bit), Windows 8™, Windows 10™
    • iOS
    • Android
  • Internet Browsers
    • Internet Explorer 9, 10, 11
    • Microsoft Edge
    • Safari 6™ or later
    • Chrome 30™ or later
  • Media Player
    • Latest Flash plugin
    • Microsoft Silverlight™ player to view programs
    • Microsoft Windows Media Player™ Release 9.0, 10.0, or 11.0 to view programs
    • IOS Tablet and Phones that support playback function for MP4 VoD files
    • Android Tablets and Phones that support playback function for MP4 VoD files
    • Windows Tablets that support playback function for MP4 VoD files