Posted on 04/03/2014 11:43:30 AM PDT by grundle
Edited on 04/03/2014 11:48:20 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
An alcoholic Manhattan court stenographer went rogue, channeling his inner
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Why doesn't the government make audio recordings of these trials?
Something is missing from the story.
There’s no reporting on what efforts were made to fire him. And if efforts were made, why they failed.
Or how long between discovering the first messed up transcript and his firing.
Plus in other news articles, he denies ever having failed to do his job.
But I agree. Audio recordings should be made.
Several times as a manager I had to fire people like this. I always wondered why they forced the company to fire them when they walked around telling everyone how much they hated their jobs. In each case it seemed to be a huge relief to them to get fired.
In all cases I gave them a written plan they signed on how not to get fired. On the few who argued I’d pull it out and say, “You agreed to xxx, did you xxx?” “Well, no, but I YYY.” “That wasn’t the deal. Did you xxx?” “Well, no.” “Then, what action do I have to take?” “Fire me?” “Yes. Do I want to do it? No. But we agreed and now I must let you go.” As far as I recall I shook hands with all of them and wished them luck. They seemed really happy to go.
“Why doesn’t the government make audio recordings of these trials?”
An audio recording doesn’t meet the legal requirement for a written transcript.
You can have both, but one must be an accurate written transcript.
Few things are worse than having to do a job day after day that you hate.
That’s why there is this thing call “quitting”.
Wouldn't they otherwise be ineligible for unemployment?
Very few jurisdictions do real time stenographer transcripts. Most use multi-channel audio recordings, from which the Court Reporter will transcribe the official transcript later.
You can play back the record, but you don’t have the Reporter read it back.
There is a parallel audio recording.
“Why doesn’t the government make audio recordings of these trials?”
I’m sure some of them do, but if not, it may be that they don’t want a more reliable record of the trial. After all, when an appeal comes up, the contents of a tape could be more damaging to the state’s case than the sanitized court transcript.
One of those "worse" things would be fighting an court appeal, say for custody of your child, and finding out there was no record of your court case.
Like I said, you can have both but one MUST be written.
The legal transcript is written.
I believe items are brought up that are not allowed as part of the trial record.
Some people demand the ‘freedom of choice’ in work, career or personal pursuits, but they will resist accepting the responsibility of their choice with all the strength the have. Many prefer ‘victim status’, saying that something bad just happened to them, and this something was completely out of their personal control.
Can you imagine? I hated court reporting also, so I quit. Geebus.
Why was his supervisor not monitoring his work?
Yeah, but what would they say when you played them backwards?
I’ve seen a few trials where they do use a device that the stenographer uses to record the repeated words in the courtroom. It fits over their mouth and you can’t hear what they are saying as they repeat the dialogue. This allows for clarification of anything that would be muffled or leave doubt as to whose voice is being heard.
I’ve done medical transcription and would love to court transcription just because I’m interested in that sort of thing.
“Wouldn’t they otherwise be ineligible for unemployment? “
I think if they’re fired for cause, in Florida, at least, they are not eligible. But I never thought of that as I’d have called a head hunter and gotten another job. At the time it was as easy as picking up the phone. (Obama changed all that.)
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