Courtroom electronic recording should be expanded

Re: Shortage prompts LA court to move stenographers to felony, juvenile matters (LADJ, Aug. 29).

For years court administrators and even the California Supreme Court warned of the coming crisis in access to justice for impoverished and vulnerable litigants. The problem? The state (and nation) is running out of qualified court reporters. Why? Not because currently there is not enough money to pay them. But because there is an inexorable dwindling trickle of new entrants into the court reporting profession that cannot keep up with retirements and attrition.

Last week, the presiding judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court had the unenviable task to deliver the hard news that later this fall, in order to meet statutory mandates for reporters in criminal and juvenile delinquency proceedings, our court will redeploy all court reporters from family law and probate courtrooms. And he reminded the community that under the strictures of the Government Code, the court cannot utilize electronic recordation of family and probate proceedings.

The upshot: no verbatim record of proceedings in critical family law and probate court proceedings. Should that domestic violence restraining order have been issued to protect the alleged victim? Should that mother have been denied future custody of or visitation with her child? Should that young woman, against her will, have had a conservator appointed to make the most intimate decisions in her life? Where is the prospect of adequate review on appeal?

What's more, how are supervising judges and the California Commission on Judicial Performance to evaluate the hundreds of complaints per year from litigants alleging judges' violations of the Canons of Judicial Ethics without some record of who actually said what?

The California Supreme Court explained four years ago the denial of access to justice occasioned by the lack of a record on appeal in Jameson v. Desta, a decision well worth re-reading now. Moreover, the Court noted - twice in footnotes - the obvious, commonsense, simple and inexpensive answer to the problem in the opinion: the legislature amending the Government Code to further permit electronic recording. (It's already OK for misdemeanor and "limited civil" courts.)

Such an amendment must be done carefully and thoughtfully. The court's cadre of court reporters are beloved and respected, and the first recourse for a record should always be an available court reporter, not a tape recorder! But the answer to no available court reporter cannot be no record at all.

All of us - judges, legislators and the governor - hold sacred our commitment to access to justice especially for the most vulnerable members of our community. We all need to work to fix this, and soon.