I was interviewed for this article. In general, I have heard pretty poor feedback from jurisdictions that use audio recording instead of court reporters. Admittedly, I have had to work hard to save cases where court reporters dropped the ball or dropped dead.

Statesman Link

I was also interviewed for the article. I emphasized to the author that the cases where I have court reporter problems are the exception to the rule, and that came through a bit in the story. I think the article was fairly well-written.

I also have no experience with reporter-less courtrooms and am interested to hear from those who've done an appeal through one. Anyone with an experience to share?

I currently have an appeal pending out of a court with a recorder- interestingly it's out of Judge Burkeen's court, who was also quoted in the article. We're waiting under our first extension of time for the reporters record, after the Clerk has sent it off to be transcribed. It hasn't been pending all THAT long yet, but I'll let you know.

I also worked in Kleberg County, which uses a recording system in the county court at law. The one appeal I saw while I was there (which never advanced procedurally in the 18 months I worked there) was based on the fact that the original recording had been lost. The tapes that were supposed to contain the recording had some parts of the trial- but not the hotly contested closing arguments. I left before I found out what was going to happen. The CoA had ordered the court coordinator to produce the full recording, but I don't know that was actually possible.

At the same time, it's infuriating to see articles like this:

http://www.caller.com/news/2010/aug/11/court-reporters-win-pay-increase/

One reporter who won't be getting any pay increase, seeRobbery Redo