Makes the victim more real (to the judge), I guess. And the family are victims too, the ones who continue to suffer, so I guess the 4D chess is demonstrating what the victims lost.

It eventually makes sense to my brain, aside from the AI part of course. If I'm a remarkably forgiving person my family might both appreciate that about me, and not be remarkably forgiving themselves. And they might say look, we lost this remarkable human being, punish the responsible party harshly.