Ohio Criminal Appeals Lawyer Blog

There is an article in today's Columbus Dispatch about the cost of transcripts.

While I agree that set costs for providing a second or third copy is high, transcripts are very important to criminal defendants. The accuracy of those transcripts is vital for the criminal defendant to even have a chance at due process of law on appeal. Montgomery County now uses mostly digital recordings of court proceedings. Those recordings are then transcribed by "transcriptionists." Having the digital recordings has allowed me to see just how inaccurate some of the transcripts have been in appeals I have handled.

In my view, everyone is underpaid in the indigent defendant criminal justice system. Especially lawyers. The pay for lawyers on court appointed appeals is so low that it hurts an indigent defendant's chance of getting "justice" in my opinion (or not, depending on how you define justice).

Now how much the State pays for transcripts is under fire. I'd agree that the costs of just making a copy of a transcript is too high - especially in this electronic age. But as the budgets of court reporters or "transcriptionists" is cut into, I anticipate the accuracy of transcripts will go down. The fight to get things "right" on appeal will be harder. The cost of transcripts may be high, but the cost of dealing with inaccurate transcripts will also be high.

Read the article about the cost of transcripts here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a Dayton Criminal Defense Lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

Contact me 24/7 by sending an email to ohiocriminalappealslawyer@gmail.com

The State appealed a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence. The prosecutor filed an electronic version of the suppression hearing (an audio or video recording) but failed to have a paper transcript created. The Court of Appeals for Montgomery County stated that it had discretion, based on former Appellate Rule 9, to review the electronic version of the motion to suppress hearing, but it chose not to. Instead, the Court of Appeals presumed the regularity of the proceedings below and affirmed the ruling of the trial court.

In the newly amended version of Appellate Rule 9, at B(1), it states, "It is the obligation of the appellant to ensure that the proceedings the appellant considers necessary for inclusion in the record, however those proceedings were recorded, are transcribed in a form that meets the specifications of App. R. 9(B)(6)."

Read the decision in State v. Watson, 2011-Ohio-5213, here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

Contact me 24/7 by sending an email to ohiocriminalappealslawyer@gmail.com

Ohio Appellate Rule 9 states that transcripts must be certified for their accuracy or correctness. Under section A, a "counsel" may type or print portions of a video transcript but the "counsel" must certify that the pages are an accurate transcription of what is on the video. Under section B, if a "reporter" (court reporter) prepares the transcript, the reporter must certify that the transcript is correct.

Today a "pro se" Appellant lost her appeal in a case where the court reporter did not transcribe the voir dire. The pro se Appellant attached additional pages of transcription to her brief. The pages were not certified for their accuracy or correctness by the reporter and so the Court of Appeals could not rely on them.

Read paragraph ten of the Greene County Court of Appeals decision here.

If you are accused of a crime or have been convicted already, contact me if you can afford to hire a private criminal defense lawyer. Otherwise, contact your county or state public defender to see if they can help.

The Ohio Supreme Court deserves credit for their decision today in State v. Everette, 2011-Ohio-2856. This decision is good for indigent defendants. Thomas Everette qualified for appointed counsel on appeal in Montgomery County. Appointed counsel are not paid well for appeals and the appointed counsel is not paid at all if they decide to do a petition for postconviction relief. Everette asked for appointed counsel to help him with a postconviction petition but the Second District Court of Appeals for Montgomery County said "no." The Court of Appeals said, "a matter for post-conviction relief is considered civil in nature, and therefore, counsel need not be appointed." Yikes! The end result is that many indigent criminal defendants in Ohio have to do PCR petitions themselves (pro se).

If that were not bad enough, Montgomery County has gotten away from using actual live court reporters in their courtrooms. Instead, they use recording equipment to record proceedings. So the first thing you get when you ask for a transcript for your appeal is a disk which contains recordings of court action in the case. Appellate Rule 9 says that a videotape recording constitutes the transcript. And a petition for postconviction relief is due 180 days after the transcript is filed. So when Everette filed his petition for postconviction relief on April 8, 2009, the Montgomery County trial judge and Court of Appeals said he was too late. He had to file it by February 22, 2009, which was 180 days after the videos were filed.

How many prisoners have the ability to view recordings of their trials? And even if they could, the court would want parts of the record relied upon to be put into written transcript form. That puts indigent defendants in a tough spot. Their appointed counsel (for the direct appeal) requests the "transcripts," disks are filed containing videos, and the clock starts to run on the poor defendant who is stuck (in most cases) doing the pcr petition himself/herself. Their appointed counsel likely do not send the disks to prison, and Everette was fortunate to even get a copy of the written transcript and to get his petition in within 180 days of when the written transcript was filed.

Granting some relief to indigent defendants, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today that the 180 day time period begins to run from when the written transcript is filed (and not from when the videos are filed as the trial judge and court of appeals ruled). Sometimes rulings comport with common sense. This is one of those times.