[nycgal]

The reason that I have been given is that the transcripts do nothing to show the demeanor/intonation of the witness and other factors surrounding the testimony.

Neither do readbacks. I've been on a jury and have had testimony read back to us. The court reporter read it in a flat, monotone voice, never duplicating the tone or demeanor of the witness. I'm sure the court reporter didn't emulate Denise Kamal's body language duting readback :-)

Actually, I think juries ought to get a transcript to take into the jury room

I totally agree with you.

[Irene Adler]

"Neither do readbacks. I've been on a jury and have had testimony read back to us.

True, but judges are actually reluctant to do the readbacks, as well. It is the minimum they can do, and it's all they do.

When I was on a jury, the judge told us that if we had questions or wanted readbacks, he had to bring in both attorneys and the defendent from wherever they were at the time, and he obviously didn't want to to that unless we REALLY wanted something. For the answer to one of our questions, he just sent us a note that said, "Read your written instructions from me, again." And he was quite a nice judge, too.

[Eva]

I think that the real reason that the jury is not allowed to read the transcripts is that literacy is not a requirement to be on a jury.

[FreeTheHostages]

Re transcripts: I was a prosecutor for 8 years and it works like this. First, some courts do allow transcripts in. Some court reporters that use real-time voice transcription only need a short time to correct it and can get accurate transcripts in by the time the jury needs them. But, in the real world, most court reporters do not have the equipment or technology to produce a complete accurate transcript that fast. But they can read back from their recordation of the sounds. (They have machines that record composite sounds in keystrokes, like dipthongs and such.) So really it's just a practical limitation. In the future, transcripts may well be available to the jury upon request.