This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I'm no lawyer, but the first thing I thought was, "My God, if
he's convicted and wants to appeal, how can he with no transcript?"
Common sense indicates that if you're going to review a trial,
you need a detailed record of what happened in the trial. But
beyond that, I can cite one example where an incomplete
transcript had a significant impact. In the case of convicted
murderer Caryl Chessman, he either got a stay of execution or
a retrial (can't recall which) because of an incomplete
transcript.

Now, in Chessman's case, the incomplete transcript was not due
to anything he had done. In Chauvin's case, where there's no
transcript at all, I have to assume this is something he and
his attorney consented to. But enough with that, on to my
question.

A criminal defendant consents to no transcript being taken at
his trial. He is convicted. Is it possible, as a practical
matter, for him to successfully appeal the conviction? If so,
how? Please assume that errors occurred in the trial which
would have resulted in a successful appeal if a transcript
existed.

(And yes, I know there are a million different crimes on the
books, and an equally large number of possible scenarios for
a trial. Please feel free to make up specific scenarios, or
to answer generally, however you see fit.)

CPR

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On 4/20/2021 11:12 PM, Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts DO
exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

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Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:

Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts
DO exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

It may just be that transcripts are not available immediate - they take
time to validate and print up.

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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On 4/23/2021 11:01 AM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:

Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:

Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts
DO exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

It may just be that transcripts are not available immediate - they take
time to validate and print up.

As I understand it, modern court reporter use a keyboard that represents phonemes rather than letters. That way they don't have to think about
whether c*t is caught or cot (with a regional accent).
* representing the vowel sound in caught

Producing a transcript (words rather than sounds) is therefore a manual operation and takes some time.

In the past, I think if the jury wanted to review testimony, the court
reporter would read the relevant part of the transcript to the jury. I'm
not sure how it's handled now.

--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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"Stuart O. Bronstein" wrote in message news:XnsAD156F6BDE739spamtraplexregiacom@130.133.4.11...

Mike Anderson <prabbit237@gmail.com.com> wrote:

Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts
DO exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

It may just be that transcripts are not available immediate - they take
time to validate and print up.

But more importantly, jurors are not given a transcript of the trial - they
are expected to take notes and base their deliberations on their
recollections of the trial. They can request that portions of the testimony
be read back to them, but they are not actually given transcripts of
testimony.

--

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On Friday, April 23, 2021 at 1:39:28 PM UTC-4, Mike Anderson wrote:

On 4/20/2021 11:12 PM, Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts DO
exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

Well, I didn't watch it live. I DVR'd it and was watching
throughout the day, a couple of hours after things happened.
When he said that I rewound it and listened again, thinking
I might have misunderstood it. I hadn't misunderstood it.
I'm quite sure that's what he said. "No such transcript
exists" is pretty close to a verbatim quote.

Now, as others have pointed out, he may have meant that a
transcript did not exist *yet*. I've since deleted the
recording, but from what I recall there was nothing about
his statement to imply whether a transcript would or would
not exist in the future.

It sounds to me like you all have it right; transcripts
take time to prepare, et cetera, and the fact that a
transcript was not available for the jurors doesn't mean
there won't be one later. But here's something that occurred
to me after I posted my question here.

The trial was televised, and I'd bet that all of it is
recorded. So suppose there was a hypothetical trial, somewhere
in the USA (not necessarily in Minnesota), which was fully
recorded by television media and which had no transcript.
Could those video recordings be used as the trial record
for an appeal?

I'll add on a side note that I have seen a trial with no
transcript. I was a juror in a civil case about fifteen
years ago. There was no court reporter. I'm guessing that
the cost of a court reporter is ultimately borne by the
litigants, and given the amount at stake in the case,
neither party considered it to be worth the expense.

CPR

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"Charles Reynolds" wrote in message news:5d888506-86c0-456a-9b0e-7fe31a6811aan@googlegroups.com...

On Friday, April 23, 2021 at 1:39:28 PM UTC-4, Mike Anderson wrote:

On 4/20/2021 11:12 PM, Charles Reynolds wrote:

This question is inspired by the Derek Chauvin trial, but I'll
make it a general question.

I didn't watch the testimony, but I watched as much as I could
of the closing statements yesterday. After the attorneys had
finished, the judge said in his final remarks to the jury that
he could not give the jurors a trial transcript, because no
such transcript exists.

I think you misheard or misunderstood something as the transcripts DO
exist (maybe they weren't immediately available?)

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts?s=derek+chauvin

Well, I didn't watch it live. I DVR'd it and was watching
throughout the day, a couple of hours after things happened.
When he said that I rewound it and listened again, thinking
I might have misunderstood it. I hadn't misunderstood it.
I'm quite sure that's what he said. "No such transcript
exists" is pretty close to a verbatim quote.

Now, as others have pointed out, he may have meant that a
transcript did not exist *yet*. I've since deleted the
recording, but from what I recall there was nothing about
his statement to imply whether a transcript would or would
not exist in the future.

It sounds to me like you all have it right; transcripts
take time to prepare, et cetera, and the fact that a
transcript was not available for the jurors doesn't mean
there won't be one later. But here's something that occurred
to me after I posted my question here.

The trial was televised, and I'd bet that all of it is
recorded. So suppose there was a hypothetical trial, somewhere
in the USA (not necessarily in Minnesota), which was fully
recorded by television media and which had no transcript.
Could those video recordings be used as the trial record
for an appeal?

I'll add on a side note that I have seen a trial with no
transcript. I was a juror in a civil case about fifteen
years ago. There was no court reporter. I'm guessing that
the cost of a court reporter is ultimately borne by the
litigants, and given the amount at stake in the case,
neither party considered it to be worth the expense.

CPR

I believe what the judge meant was that there was no written transcript,
which I think is typical for that point in the trial. The "transcript" at
that point, such as it is, is the stenographic record in the hands of the
court reporter. And as I posted elsewhere, juries are not typically given
a transcript anyway - they are expected to take notes and rely on their recollections. Upon request to the judge, they can ask to have portions of
the trial read back to them.

As to whether a transcript made from a TV broadcast would "count" as an official transcript, I suppose that would depend on whether or not the judge
in the original case had allowed all portions of the trial to be televised.

--

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"Rick" <rick@nospam.com> wrote:

As to whether a transcript made from a TV broadcast would "count"
as an official transcript, I suppose that would depend on whether
or not the judge in the original case had allowed all portions of
the trial to be televised.

A certified court reporter (at least in California) is a notary who
reviews the transcript and then swears under penalty of perjury that it
is a true and correct recording of what was said during the trial.
Something coming from another source would not be "official."

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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