Overturned Conviction Highlights Importance of Court Reporters

October 29, 2018

A North Carolina man convicted of rape recently had his conviction overturned because the courtroom recording equipment malfunctioned, resulting in a one-and-a-half-hour gap in the record at a critical point in the trial.



This error is tragic for both sides. The victim, who already testified in front of a jury and full courtroom one time, must testify again. The Defendant, if he is found not guilty, will have spent years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.



How could this happen? In 2013, North Carolina replaced a number of court reporters with unmonitored digital recording equipment, citing budget concerns. Courtroom clerks are responsible for turning the equipment on and off and keeping a log of when different cases are called, when witnesses testify, when exhibits are marked, and when judges issue rulings. But courtroom clerks have a number of other duties and aren’t constantly monitoring the equipment to make sure it’s working.



Now, instead of saving money, the state will have to pay for another trial.
Whether they use stenomask, stenotype, or electronic court reporters, it’s clear that a court reporter, whose sole job it is to ensure an accurate, complete record of the trial is captured, is necessary in a courtroom.



“Court reporters are extremely vital. We are the guardians of the record,” said Jessica Sheldon, President of the North Carolina Association of Official Court Reporters.”[With] an audio recording, no one is there making sure each word is understood. A door slam could change the whole testimony if we don’t know what that word was.”



It should be pointed out that there are major differences between placing digital audio equipment in a courtroom and utilizing an electronic court reporter. An electronic court reporter is a professional who constantly monitors the recording equipment and who makes notes as to when examinations start, objections are lodged, exhibits are marked, and the proper spelling of names and terms used. In addition, if a witness or attorney speaks too softly or if they talk over each other, the electronic court reporter will interrupt the proceedings to ask them to repeat what was said or to speak up.

Hopefully the publicity that this case has generated will force legislators to revisit their decisions. As Mecklenburg County Superior Court Judge Richard Boner said in 2014, “If they want to turn the courtroom into a factory, they can do that. But I don’t consider that justice. Can you really put a dollar amount on justice?”



Chapel Hill Court Reporting strives to be “guardians of the record.”  You can be assured each time you book a court reporter or videographer with us your case will be handled professionally all the way around.  Call us now to book your next deposition:  919-682-7757 or book online:  https://chapelhillcourtreporter.com/schedule-service

How AI Can Impact Your Next Case

August 6, 2018

How AI Can Impact
Your Next Case

This year internet privacy has been a big topic in the news.
After Facebook and other websites admitted they collect and sell our data to
marketers, sometimes without explicit consent, consumers have been alarmed by
the invasion of their privacy and are finally realizing some of the ways in
which supposedly harmless information can be used.

Until now, many wondered why a minority of consumers were so
bothered that information about the brands they like, their hobbies, or their favorite
foods is collected and sold to advertisers. We’ve now learned that when every
available channel of information is combined with information from other
sources (including credit bureaus and public records), a pretty complete file
about an individual’s life is available. Whoever possesses that file can
predict your behavior and deliver relevant ads.

They’re able to do that by utilizing artificial intelligence
companies, which use your data fingerprint to predict your future behavior -or
desires and use that information to deliver targeted ads to your computer.

The same type of technology is changing the way litigation
works, and multiple companies claim they can predict judicial behavior. From
the New
York Law Journal
:

“Similar to the way online
retailers use predictive analytics to predict customer behavior, law firms can
use analytics to predict how judges and courts rule and the precedents they
rely on. “Learn how judges think, write and rule,” touts Ravel Law’s Judge
Analytics.

“Premonition claims the
world’s largest litigation database and mines data to find out “which lawyers
win which cases before which judges.” Similarly, Lex Machina’s legal analytics
reveal insights “never before available about judges, lawyers, parties, and the
subjects of the cases themselves, culled from millions of pages of litigation
information.”

It sounds creepy and almost unfair. But, the historical
information is what it is. It’s simply aggregating information usually only
held by long-term court watchers. Premonition’s co-founder, Guy Kurlandski, says:

“There is not enough aggregated
court data in one place; Al allows us to do it en masse. The tool is built
mainly on machine learning with some AI, but it’s fully automated. It has been
pulling more than a million cases a day and putting it into our data
framework.”

These databases take “local knowledge” and make it
easily accessible. Anyone who’s worked in a courtroom a long time knows which
judges rule more favorably on certain topics and which attorneys’ personalities’
conflict with which judges. Now insurance companies and law firms can research
which judges may be more sympathetic to a particular case or which attorney
should be lead counsel in a motion or trial.