Humans, machines or nothing: Case will decide future of California court transcripts
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Set us as preferred The California Supreme Court is poised to rule in a lawsuit that has pitted the state’s court reporters — the workers who create transcripts of court proceedings — against victims of domestic violence and other vulnerable litigants.The case will determine whether to end a long-standing prohibition on the electronic recording of most civil court proceedings, enabling the use of modern technology to create a “verbatim record,” which is crucial to appeals and other legal challenges.Advocates say a decision in favor of electronic recording could end a years-long judicial crisis virtually overnight, producing legal records and preserving the right to appeal in tens of thousands of cases in civil, family and probate hearings where court reporters are rarely provided.Participants in the civil proceedings can hire private stenographers to maintain a record of what’s said, but their services can run thousands of dollars a day.
“In many, many courtrooms throughout the state today, there is nobody there, and there’s not going to be anybody there,” attorney Sonya Winner told the high court during oral arguments in Los Angeles last month.“The court reporters the court has on staff are off doing felony trials,” making electronic recording the only alternative for most civil litigants.
California Proceedings in domestic violence, child custody and other cases routinely go without transcripts amid a court staffing shortage and a law that bars electronic recordings.Everyone agrees the lack of court reporters is a crisis.Lawyers on both sides have urged the high court to establish a clear right to a verbatim record in civil hearings.
The divergence is over whether the worker shortage is improving slowly or still getting worse, and what the Supreme Court should do about it.California’s largest publi...