California Public Defenders Association Supports Officials, Opposes ER
Posted in: Electronic Recording, Furloughs
CPDA sends letter calling latest ER proposal “deeply-flawed and misguided”
Since word of the LAO’s proposal to replace officials with ER broke, COCRA has been working hard to elicit support from officials and court reporters throughout California. But we’ve also been getting questions about what support, if any, we’ve received from people who most benefit from the services that officials provide daily in Californa courts.
The California Public Defenders Association (CPDA) has sent out a letter supporting the use of officials in California courts and comes down strongly against ER. The letter by Michael P. Judge, chairperson of the CPDA Legislative Committee, calls the proposal “deeply-flawed and misguided.”
You can read the entire letter included below with this post.
From: Michael P. Judge, Chairperson, Legislative Committee, CPDA
To: Legislative Committee, Barry Broad, Shane Gusman, Board/Officers
Re: Governor’s Proposal to Replace Human Court Reporters with Electronic Recording (ER)
CPDA opposes this deeply-flawed and misguided proposal. Live court reporters are far superior to ER in providing quality control and accurate records of court proceedings in criminal court proceedings. Such court reporters can discern when a person’s voice level drops to the limits of audibility either due to a reduction in volume or due to the positioning of their body or direction of their projection and immediately intervene to correct the situation. Otherwise, there may be gaps in the official record that can undermine the fundamental integrity of the proceedings.
The above is likewise true if someone with a heavy accent trying to make do without an interpreter in fact ought to have an interpreter. Likewise, in the case of someone who is speaking so fast the words run together. The human court reporter can take the necessary action to ensure an accurate record of the proceedings is not irretrievably lost.
There may be situations in which extraneous conversations or ambient noise could be so loud as to compromise the ability of ER to recognize the source but a human court reporter can intervene directly or with the judge to prevent the irremediable compromise of the official record. The court reporter is in a position to recognize when activities are about to impair the documentation of an accurate record and warn others. That cannot be accomplished be ER.
In summary, CPDA urges the Legislature to refuse to eliminate the clearly superior method of creating an official record in criminal cases, which protects the validity of judgments rendered by criminal courts, and retain the time-tested reliable record keepers, the human court reporters in our criminal courts.
Posted on June 8th, 2009 by Gordon
3 Comments
June 8th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Got to love those Public Defenders!! I think I’ll become a fan on Facebook!!
June 8th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Now we just need the DA’s and the judges. If people think there are other groups out there who would love to support officials, let us know.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Thank you for your support CPDA. We also need support from the civil side. Does anyone have any ideas or connections?