California courts are still stuck

By Calmatters Digital democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow:

The shortage of court reporters in California has become so bad that thousands of people, including alleged victims of domestic violence, no longer have a written record of their civil cases, which makes it difficult to exercise their constitutional right to appeal.

But it seems contradictory legislation that judicial reporters insist that he is dead in the legislature for the year, giving the California Supreme Court time to rule in a pending case, which can decide whether California’s law banning the recording in many types of cases is non -constitutional.

Last month CalMatters reported how The shortage of court reporters has intensified that the legal aid associations have annulled the State Supreme Court to invalidate California’s law, banning the record in certain civil cases.

Petitioners claim that the ban creates a “two -tier” justice system in which rich court disputes have the opportunity to hire private court reporters to introduce a written record. But people who cannot afford more than $ 3,000 a day to hire a contract reporter are at the mercy of a short -term judicial system.

Following the petition, the Union of Judicial Reporters sponsors the legislation that critics fear that they may contradict the court’s decision and worsen the problem.

But earlier this week of the Union Assembly Bill 882 He was suddenly removed from the Senate’s Senate Calendar. The bill, which would cancel a ban on the enrollment of court proceedings for three years, had to pass the progress committee, which makes it probably dead for the year. Assembly Diane BoardDemocrat from San Mateo and Bill’s author did not return messages.

The apparent death of the bill comes after California General Prosecutor Rob Bont last month took the unusual step to weigh the Supreme Court, aside with petitioners.

Bont writes that many low-income litigation cannot receive records in their court hearing, “including proceedings that affect some of the most significant aspects in their lives.” He said the situation became insolvent for both court disputes and the courts.