THE EDITOR, Sir:
BARBARA GAYLE'S article in the Sunday Gleaner of July 28 carries the amazing story of a man who spent five years in prison while waiting for the transcript of his trial to be sent to the Court of Appeal. The reason given for the delay was that the court reporter who took the verbatim notes at the trial in 1997 had left the island. Eventually, the Court of Appeal had to be guided by the transcript of the trial judge's notes.
This report calls to mind the story which The Gleaner front-paged in February 1981, when I successfully transcribed Pitmanic notes in the case of a man convicted of murder in Florida and who was in jail for four years while waiting on the transcript of his trial. In that case, too, the court reporter had left the country, could not be traced, and no one could be found in the United States to transcribe the short-hand notes.
They took emergency action when the judge sent an ultimatum to State Attorney Janet Reno that if the required transcript was not in the court in eight days the prisoner would be freed.
In 1997, the court reporter in the local case must have taken machine shorthand notes, which are much easier to transcribe than Pitman's Shorthand. Was any of our local court reporters invited to transcribe the notes of the absent reporter which should have been on file? If not, why not?
If no one was available locally to transcribe the notes, with a man languishing in jail it is a pity that the authorities did not invite one of the many thousands of court reporters in the United States who write machine shorthand, to return the 'favour' they obtained through me in 1981, and so speed the course of justice!
I am, etc.,
SAMUEL A. FITZ-HENLEY
Retired Supreme Court Reporter
P.O Box 799
Kingston 8
