United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Fayetteville Division
OPINION AND ORDER
TIMOTHY L. BROOKS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Currently
before the Court are Plaintiff Krystal Megan Delima's
Motion for Order to Correct Testimony (Doc. 148), and three
separate Motions for Correction (Docs 149, 150, 151) which
detail the proposed corrections Ms. Delima seeks.
Ms.
Delima's motions explain that she ordered several
transcripts of excerpts of witness testimony from the jury
trial held in February.[1] After reviewing those transcripts, Ms.
Delima accuses the court reporter of numerous indiscretions,
including "fabrication of non-sensible words," and
deletions and replacements with words that were out of
context with what Ms. Delima claims the testimony really was.
See, e.g., Doc. 148, p. 1. She additionally requests
the audio back-up file of these transcripts.
The
Court has reviewed the numerous alleged errors in the
transcript excerpts and finds that Ms. Delima's
allegations are almost entirely without merit. The vast
majority of Ms. Delima's proposed changes are labeled
"clarifications." Ms. Delima claims that the
transcript is incorrect because it contains words that
repeat, incomplete sentences, incorrect verb tense, etc. What
Ms. Delima fails to appreciate is that the court
reporter's job is not to take what was said from the
witness stand or the bench and convert it into the
Queen's English. Her job is to transcribe exactly what
was said. Therefore, when a witness, Judge, or attorney
repeats phrases, interrupts prior thoughts to begin anew, or
uses incomplete sentences, that is what the transcript should
(and in this case does) reflect. Thus, Ms. Delima's
wishes that the transcript be updated to reflect the complete
thoughts of how she contends the witness intended to testify
is misplaced.[2] It is improper to change a transcript
after the trial to reflect testimony that was never given.
There
are, however, two instances where a correction will be
ordered.[3] First, Ms. Delima is correct that the
index for the transcript of Zenith Thompson's testimony
incorrectly lists the Court Reporter's Certification as
being on page 33. It really is on page 14. Second, the
transcript of Ms. Delima's narrative testimony includes
the word "open" when Ms. Delima contends that it
should be "often." After reviewing the audio, it is
an extremely close call about whether the word said was
"open" or "often." It appears that the
way Ms. Delima pronounced the word may have contributed to it
being transcribed as "open." Nevertheless, after
reviewing the context, the Court is left with the impression
that the transcript should be corrected to "often."
Therefore, the Court will direct the Court Reporter to amend
the transcripts to 1) correct the page number of the
Court's Reporter's Certification on the index of Doc.
144 and 2) to change the word "open" to
"often" on page 4 of Doc. 146. Her requests for
"clarifications" are in all other respects denied.
Her request for the audio back-up file is also denied.
See Guide to Judiciary Policy § 510.40.10(c).
Finally,
the Court cautions Ms. Delima about lodging such accusations
of malpractice and obstruction of justice against the Court
or any of its personnel in the future, especially when those
accusations are as unfounded as those lodged here. All of the
officers of this Court take their duty seriously to ensure
that each litigant has a full and fair opportunity to present
its case. It is clear that Ms. Delima is unhappy with the
jury's verdict, but this disappointment provides no
excuse to baselessly accuse court personnel of deliberately
altering official records in order to obstruct
plaintiff's "quest for justice." (Doc. 148, p.
2).
IT
IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Ms. Delima's Motion
for Order to Correct Testimony (Doc. 148), Motion for
Correction of Transcript of Zenith Thompson (Doc. 149), and
Motion for Correction of Transcript of Krystal Delima (Doc.
151) are GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART
as described above. Ms. Delima's Motion for Correction of
Transcript of Christopher Milam (Doc. 150) is
DENIED.
IT
IS SO ORDERED
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Notes:
[1] To be clear, Ms. Delima did not order
the entire trial transcript. Instead, she ordered excerpts,
consisting of the testimony of four specific fact witnesses.
See Docs. 143-146.
[2] For example, the transcript reflects
that Ms. Delima testified that she arrived at the store at 6
p.m. She now wishes the transcript to reflect that she
arrived between 5 and 5:30. (Doc. 151, p. 1). But, as that is
not what her testimony was during the trial, it is
inappropriate to change the transcript.
[3] Technically, Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 10(e)(2) only envisions corrections of
"material" errors or omissions. The Court will give
Ms. Delima the benefit of the doubt here, even though the
Court is extremely skeptical as to ...