Court Reporters Going Digital?

It seems like there's going to be a new sheriff in town...court reporters will be sharing their duties of guardians of the record with a handy dandy digital recording machine. I've heard and read enough horror stories to make me nervous if my assets were at stake in a proceeding being recorded.

Some day the technology will be better but that's not today.

~ the Beagle

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Court reporters going digital

DANIEL TEPFER Staff writer

Article Last Updated: 04/19/2008 11:31:08 PM EDT

They are the unsung soldiers of the courtroom — court reporters and monitors recording every word of every trial and hearing for posterity.

But over the last half-century, despite the digital revolution, there has been little change in the way these men and women perform their task.

Things, however, are about to change.

In Connecticut, there now are two main methods of court reporting — using a special stenotype machine or audio cassette recorders.

The stenotype machines look like small typewriters with only a fraction of the keys, which instead of letters type a special shorthand of symbols that represent sounds, words and phrases.
As they type, the symbols appear on a paper tape that spins out of the top of the machine. Many newer machines also record shorthand on a computer disc.

The stenographers later type up transcripts of court hearings from the shorthand.
Stenographers must attend national Court Reporters Association-approved schools where they take, on average, 33 months of training. They then must pass a state-certified exam. Monitors sit in front of cassette machines recording every word of testimony. They do not have to undergo specialized training, but are trained to operate the recording equipment and taking handwritten notes so that they can quickly find specific areas of the recorded testimony to be replayed.

Both the stenographers and monitors are responsible for typing transcripts of each court proceeding.

A major problem is that over time the audio cassettes degrade, distorting the recordings. The stenographic machines record information on a 4-inch paper tape, which consumes storage space.

However, new technology aims to address these problems.

For The Record, or "FTR," was developed by a software company in 1993 in Perth, Western Australia.

According to Nancy Brown, program manager for the state Judicial Branch's Transcription Services, the company produces equipment that digitizes all audio recordings in the courtroom.
The equipment, resembling a cross between a large DVD and the tower section of a computer, contains a digital hard-drive system.

"The new system eliminates the chances cassettes or recorders could malfunction or develop defects over time," Brown said. Because of the cost of the equipment, $8,000 a unit, its use is slowly spreading to all the state's courthouses. There are a few units in use in the Golden Hill Street courthouse in Bridgeport, but it is not yet in use in the Main Street court.
Statewide, Brown said there are units in 105 courtrooms, but acknowledged that is just a fraction of all state courtrooms.

Bridgeport's Official Court Reporter Mary Ellen Hirschbeck said she looks forward to outfitting courtrooms there with the new technology.

"A lot of people are apprehensive about it because it's new technology but it is the wave of the future," she said.

Brown said there is no danger that FTR will result in court reporters losing their jobs.
"We are always going to need court reporters," she said. "Court reporters are mobile and can record conversations in judges' chamber, at hearings and off sites such as jails, places that can not be equipped with FTR."

But, she said, FTR does help fill in for a shortage of court reporters caused by a budget crunch.
"We haven't had the money to fill any full-time positions in seven or eight years," she said. "And there are not many people who want to do it on a temporary basis because they don't get any benefits and the pay isn't very attractive."

History's first recorded shorthand reporter was Marcus Tullius, a freed Roman slave who became Cicero's secretary. In 63 B.C., he used a metal stylus to report a speech. Julius Caesar, a shorthand writer, supposedly was stabbed with his own stylus.

Shorthand later declined in popularity when it was declared by the church to be necromantic and diabolical.

In 1588, Dr. Timothe Bright is credited with authoring the first practical system of shorthand published in English. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth the First, the system had no alphabet but consisted of more than 500 characters that had to be memorized.

That system was later improved on in 1750 by Thomas Gurney, the first official reporter of parliamentary debates in England. One of the most famous of these "court reporters" was author Charles Dickens, whose efforts to master shorthand became a subplot in his book, "David Copperfield."

In the United States, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison used shorthand for diverse purposes. Using a personally developed shorthand, Madison recorded the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

But it is Isaac Pitman who is considered the father of modern shorthand. In 1837 he developed the first system of phonetically based shorthand in England. His brother, Ben, later used the system to report the trial of the assassin of President Lincoln.

Irishman John Robert Gregg in 1888 established his own shorthand school. He moved to the U.S. in 1893 and established schools in Boston.

The following poem was written by W.C. (Casey) Jones for the 1964 meeting of the Kansas Shorthand Reporters Association.

"Who Am I?

My profession stems from man's desire and his necessity to preserve the happenings of yesterday and today for tomorrow.

My profession was born with the rise of civilization in ancient Greece.

I was known as a scribe.

I was in Judaea, Persia and the Roman Empire before Christ.

I preserved the Ten Commandments for posterity.

I was with King Solomon while building the Temple and recorded the origins of Masonry.

My hand labored upon the scroll that set forth the Bill of Rights wrested from the King of England at Runnymede.

I was with the founding fathers when the Declaration of Independence was drafted.

I witnessed the signature of John Hancock.

I wrote the Dred Scott Decision for Justice Taney.

The immortal Abraham Lincoln entrusted me to record the Emancipation Proclamation.

I was commissioned to be with Roosevelt at Yalta.

I was with Eisenhower on D-Day; with MacArthur at Tokyo.

I have kept confidence reposed with me by those in high places as well as those in lowly positions.

I protect the truthful witness, and I am a Nemesis of the perjurer.

I am a party to the administration of Justice under the law and the Court I serve.

I discharge my duties with devotion and honor.

Perhaps I haven't made history, but I have preserved it through the ages for all mankind."