ABLEnews Extra

               CART Opens Court to Hearing Impaired

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Trenton--As witness testified yesterday during a Mercer County grand
jury hearing, a hearing-impaired juror was able to read the testimony
on a computer screen the moment it was uttered.

The fest, believed to be a first for a New Jersey grand jury hearing
was accomplished with a combination of computer technology and the
skill of Vicky Walsh, a verteran court reporter certified in Computer
Assisted Real-time Transcription (CART).

The cutting-edge technology uses computer software to translate the
shorthand generated by Walsh's stenotype machine into complete words
that are stored on a computer disk and can be stimultaneously
displayed on a computer screen.

In a more elaborate form, CART is being used in O.J. Simpson trial in
Los Angles.  There, Judge Lance Ito, prosecutors and Simpon's defense
team each have a computer screen wired to the court reporter's
stenotype machine.

Until the stenotype software was developed in the 1980s, court
reporters had to dictate each day's testimony onto an audio tape so a
typist could listen to the tape and manually type a transcript.

With the new computer-oriented stenotype machines, a stenographer's
phonetic shorthand is instantly translated into full-word transcripts
that need only minor editing before being printed.

Before yesterday, the county's courts would have had to hire
interpreters to translate the spoken word into sign language for
hearing-impaired people, said Robert Reed, administrator of the Mercer
County Superior Courts.

With interpreter's fees running as high as $600 per day, it would have
cost a small fortune to provide one for the deaf juror, who will sit
on the grand jury one day each week for the next 16 weeks.

In addition, the prosecutor's office must run back-ground checks on
interpreters to ensure the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings,
Reed said.

Walsh is a salaried employee and, like all court reporters, she spends
her own money to buy the equipment she uses--about $15,000 worth in
her case.  Therefore, her services will not cost the courts anything
extra, Reed said.

"This way we get to use a court reporter and her equipment, so it's
saving us a bundle," Reed said.

And, according to Walsh, the process worked so well yesterday, the
deaf juror passed her a note after the session that said, "You did a
great job."

"It's very exciting because I'm helping somebody have access to the
court system," said Walsh, who has been a certified shortand reporter
for 18 years.  "When I work with deaf people, it's really gratifying."

Stenographers also use their skills to help hearing-impaired people
enjoy more leisurely activities, Walsh pointed out.  A process similar
to the one used yesterday helps television and movie producers put
closed captioning on their productions, she said.

The juror could not be interviewed or identified because the grand
jury's proceedings are shielded from public scrutiny.

[Technology Aids Juror, Tom McGinty, Trenton Times, February 10, 1995]
(with a tip of our ABLEnews' hat to Philip Moos on ADA-LAW)

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