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"Missing trial tapes spawn an impasse; Stenographer denies she has them"

"Missing trial tapes spawn an impasse; Stenographer denies she has them": Today in The Boston Globe, Jonathan Saltzman has an article that begins, "When they do their jobs right, court stenographers attract little attention. They tap quietly on a shorthand machine at more than 200 words a minute to make a record of testimony or repeat verbatim everything said in court into a tape recorder. But among the cast of characters, they seldom play a starring role. Jeanne Lentini, however, is getting a close-up, and not a flattering one. After working in the state courts under contract for eight years, she left Massachusetts in the spring of 2007 with tape recordings she made of 17 criminal and civil trials, court officials said. Despite demands to provide transcripts or return the tapes, which belong to the state, the officials said, she has sent back only seven recordings and some blank tapes. Transcripts are the lifeblood of the appeal process, so the missing tapes have stymied litigants in 10 criminal and civil cases, preventing them from challenging the verdicts."

Full post as published by How Appealing on March 05, 2009 (boomark / email).