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Official FAQ
Keeping
Notes
Question:
How long should a court reporter keep
notes?
Answer:
Pursuant to 69955(e) In Court: 10 years; Death penalty case: forever. Depos: 1 year if transcribed and 7 years if not transcribed.
ASCII Disks
Question:
If the court reporter was paid for producing the transcripts
for the trial, do I have to pay him/her again if I need the
transcripts on a floppy disk?
Answer:
According to Government Code Section 69954(a) & (b) a
reporter is entitled to compensation for ASCII disks. If the disks
were requested within 120 days of the transcript preparation you
would have to pay the one-third rate in (b). If it has been over
120 days then you would have to pay the normal copy rate in (a). I
have attached the Government Code Section for your convenience.
69954. Compensation for transcript
prepared with computer assistance
(a) Transcripts prepared by a
reporter using computer assistance and delivered on a medium other
than paper shall be compensated at the same rate set for paper
transcripts, except the reporter may also charge an additional fee
not to exceed the cost of the medium or any copies thereof.
(b) The fee for a second copy of a
transcript on appeal in computer-readable format ordered by or on
behalf of a requesting party within 120 days of the filing or
delivery of the original transcript shall be compensated at
one-third the rate set forth for a second copy of a transcript as
provided in Section 69950. A reporter may also charge an additional
fee not to exceed the cost of the medium or any copies thereof.
Appeal
Appeal Withdrawn
After Preparation
Begins
Question:
An appeal transcript has been paid for and the day before
it was due, we found out that the Court of Appeal was not going to
consider it, and the two reporters involved, one being myself, had
already printed up the appeal. The question is whether to still
bill for it.
Answer:
Once you receive an appeal notice from the Appellate
Clerk, it is a court order to prepare the transcript. You must
begin preparation. Once the appeal is withdrawn, and you are
served with notice of such, you need to cease preparation. You
file the portion of your transcript that was completed at the time
of receiving notice of the dismissal of the appeal and the county
is responsible for payment of completed portion. If you have the
total transcript completed, submit that for payment.
Civil Appeal Time Constraints
Question:
When does the reporter’s time start running? From the time
the civil appeal is filed, or from the time when the transcript fees
are deposited?
Answer:
From the time the fees are deposited. CRC 124(c) & (d)
[Deposit or waiver of reporter’s
charges] The notice given by the appellant under the foregoing
provisions of this Rule shall not be effective for any purpose
unless, within 10 days after notification from the clerk of his
estimate of the cost of preparing the reporter’s transcript as
designated by the notices of the parties, or within 10 days after
being notified directly by the reporter, the appellant shall either
deposit with the clerk an amount of cash equal to the estimated cost
with directions to apply the same to the fees of the reporter or
file with the clerk a waiver of such deposit signed by the reporter.
When the appellant has complied with the provisions hereof, the
clerk shall forthwith direct the reporter to prepare the reporter’s
transcript in accordance with the notices of the parties.
(d) [Preparation of transcript] Within
20 days after direction from the clerk or the receipt of the fees
from the appellant the reporter shall complete and file with the
clerk an original reporter’s transcript as directed, and certify the
same as correct. One week after the deadline for filing the
transcript, the clerk shall accept completed portions of the
transcript from the lead reporter in a multi-reporter case even if
not all portions of the transcript are complete. The clerk shall pay
promptly each reporter who certifies under penalty of perjury that
all of his or her portions of the transcript are completed. The
reporter shall note in the transcript all places where omissions of
any oral proceedings occur (and the nature of the omitted matter)
and shall also indicate the place where exhibits were received in
evidence or were offered and marked for identification, and shall
identify the exhibits so received or so offered. The reporter shall
not transcribe or copy in the reporter’s transcript any documents
which, under the provisions of Rule 125, may be included in the
clerk’s transcript on appeal.
Indexes on Appeal
Question:
What should be included in the indexes of an appeal?
Answer:
Rule 129. Form of record
(b) [Indexes] The clerk shall include
at the beginning of each volume of his transcript an alphabetical
and a chronological index referring to each paper or record therein,
and he shall also include a list of original exhibits, notices,
affidavits, orders, written instructions given or refused, and other
papers included in the record with a brief description of each of
them. The reporter shall include at the beginning of each volume of
his transcript an alphabetical and a chronological index referring
to the page at which the direct examination, the cross-examination,
the redirect examination, and the recall of each witness begins. He
shall also indicate in a separate table in the first volume of the
reporter’s transcript the page at which any exhibit or other
document copied therein appears, and the page at which he has noted
the omission of any exhibit or other document. The contents of each
transcript shall be arranged chronologically. So far as practicable
the arrangement and indexing of an agreed or settled statement shall
conform to the foregoing requirements.
Normal Record on Appeal
Question:
In a transcript on appeal, are the opening statements
transcribed?
Answer:
The code section that you're looking for is Rule 8.320(c)(3) for criminal appeals and Rule 8.753 for civil appeals. In short, no, opening statements are not part of the normal record on appeal. Extra records can be requested, such as opening statements and voir dire. You only include those if they have been ordered by the court to be included.
Fees
Expedite Fees
Question:
Is it appropriate to charge the copy attorney for the
expedite charge if both attorneys (0&1 & copy atty) requested
transcript within the same time period?
Answer:
Government Code Code 69951. Transcription in civil cases;
Additional fee: For transcription, in civil cases, the reporter
may charge an additional 50 percent for special daily copy service.
So assuming you are talking about a
civil case and not a criminal case, the code does not specify that
it's only the Orig. & 1 that can be an expedited charge. So the
short answer is you may charge expedited fees on the copy as well.
There are no provisions at this time in
the Code for any expedited fees to be charged for a criminal case,
including daily transcripts.
Fee for Second Original After
120
days
Question:
I have heard that if you produce a transcript and after
120 days that transcript is requested again, that a reporter can
charge original prices again. (For example, a motion for new
trial transcript was produced and then more than 120 days goes by
and the defendant appeals.) The problem is I can't put my finger
on the code section that allows for that. Does anyone know where
that is or even if that is true.
Answer:
There is no code section that specifically says that after
120 days you can charge for the original again.
Govt Code 69954(b) states that if you
are requested to produce an ASCII within 120 days of producing the
transcript that you can only charge one-third the rate, 5 cents a
folio. If you are asked to produce an ASCII after 120 days it is at
the normal copy rate, 15 cents.
As to whether you can charge for the
original again is open to interpretation. In LA County, which is
probably where you heard this, they consider it to be a new
transcript if you have had to change anything, such as, new cover
sheets, indices, renumber pages, etc. If that's the case, they
consider it to be a new transcript, thus enabling the reporter to
charge original rates.
Minimum Transcript Guidelines
Question:
I am slightly confused on the transcript format
requirements. I know reporters are required to use 56 characters
per line; but do you begin counting at the text or at the line
numbering?
Answer:
Quoting from the guidelines, “Left-hand margin is defined as
the first character of a line of text.” So you do not count the
line numbering.
Click here for more
Minimum Transcript Format Standards
Redaction of Victim Name
Question:
Is there "authority" meaning California statute, code, law,
court policy, which mandates that victims' names must be redacted
from court transcripts, either in all cases or in specific types of
cases, e.g., rape cases or sexually violent predator cases?
Answer:
The code section that you're referring to is PC 293.5. That
code section provides for victims of sex offenses to have their
names redacted from the record, use "Jane Doe" or first name, last
initial. This section enables them to have their name redacted from
all records, police reports, et cetera.
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