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Court reporting's digital future

Except for death penalty trials and civil cases, human court reporters are fading away.

By JOHN FRANK
Published November 20, 2006

INVERNESS - One day they'll be there. The next they won't. But few will notice.

Court reporters are a familiar, yet inconspicuous staple in Citrus County courtrooms. They sit up front, silently typing what everyone says.

It's a grueling job, with intense training to learn how to type 225 words a minute. And they play an important role in the justice system as the stenographers make the official court record.

But they are a fading breed. In six weeks, human court reporters will be a relic, replaced in many hearings by digital recording machines in Citrus County.

Per the Florida Supreme Court, legal proceedings will be recorded by an array of microphones positioned near witness, lawyers and judges, and stored digitally on a computer in a central recording room. Live reporters will still be required for death penalty trials and civil cases.

The move, designed to save money, has generated some controversy in courtrooms throughout the state.

Local court reporters have seen the change coming for some time. Citrus is the last jurisdiction in the five-county judicial circuit to make the change, said Lynn Gilstrap, the 5th Circuit's court recording supervisor.

Gilstrap said she expects the system to switch at the start of the new year. Until then, she said, the circuit is running a dual recording system with people and machines as a test.

The upgrade will affect most directly Joy Hayes and Associates, the Inverness company with the state contract to cover Citrus courts. Hayes couldn't be reached for comment.

Still, individual court reporters and other companies will feel the crunch too.

Michael Cosmo, the manager of Liberty Court Reporting in Inverness, said it crowds the market for other jobs outside the courtroom, such as recording depositions, civil matters and local government hearings.

"Joy is definitely competing with us more," he said.

In general, the demand for court reporters is still high, but "don't get me wrong, we are losing some jobs," said Shirley King, a board member with the Florida Court Reporters Association.

Court reporters are worried about more than just jobs. They worry about the integrity of the electronic system.

Cosmo said he understands how digital tapes could work in traffic court or drug court, but "not when someone's life, time and livelihood are at stake."

He also thinks that transcripts made from tapes will lack much of the tone put in the record through punctuation by human court reporters. "Only a human can discern inflection, not a tape," he said.

Others, mostly lawyers, are worried the microphones will pick up too much.

Hillsborough County Public Defender Julianne Holt filed a legal challenge to the electronic system last year. She worried the microphones would inadvertently pick up protected conversations between attorneys and their clients.

The complaint arose months earlier after a judge discovered that a switched-off microphone botched records in one defendant's case, forcing a mistrial.

This year, the 2nd District Court of Appeal denied the request to change the electronic system, and Gilstrap said she doesn't expect problems when it comes online here in Citrus.

"This is nothing new," she said. "It's been tested and tried and we've had great success."

John Frank can be reached at jfrank@sptimes.com or 860-7312.

[Last modified November 19, 2006, 23:03:57]