The Overlapping Pidgin Testimony and the Clean-Up Request
You are a Hawaii-certified freelance reporter covering a civil deposition in Honolulu. The deponent is a 62-year-old warehouse supervisor who speaks Hawaii Pidgin and occasionally Japanese. At 1:12:44, plaintiff's counsel and defense counsel speak over each other while the witness says, 'I never seen da sign.' Your audio file has a 4-second dropout at page 143, line 12. After the deposition, defense counsel emails: 'Please clean up the grammar, delete all the ums and you knows, and change I seen to I saw so the transcript reads professionally. If you cannot hear something, make your best guess and do not clutter the record with brackets.' The transcript is expedited: 187 pages due in five business days. You have a rough draft and the original audio. The witness's dialect is central to impeachment because his prior statement used different words.
1. How should you respond to the request to clean up grammar and delete fillers? Explain the governing principle and the practical response.
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Under Hawaii court reporting standards and the certification you sign, the transcript must be a verbatim record of the proceedings. A reporter may not change grammar, dialect, or word choice to make a witness sound more professional. The difference between 'I seen' and 'I saw' is not cosmetic: the witness's prior statement used different words, so an alteration could affect impeachment and the fact-finder's assessment of credibility. Audible fillers such as 'um' and 'you know' are part of the spoken record; if your office has a consistent, disclosed policy about nonlexical fillers, follow it, but do not silently delete them at one party's request. Do not accept the instruction to guess at inaudible words. Respond in writing to defense counsel: explain the verbatim duty, note that opposing counsel has not stipulated to alterations, and offer the proper mechanism, such as an errata sheet or a court-approved correction, rather than editing the certified transcript. If counsel wants a 'clean' narrative, that would be a separate, clearly labeled, non-certified summary, not the official transcript. Preserve the email and your response.
2. What should you do about the overlapping speech and the 4-second dropout?
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For overlapping speech, do not assign words to a speaker unless you can verify them. Use repeated listening, audio enhancement, and speaker identification where possible; if you still cannot resolve it, insert a bracketed notation such as [overlapping voices] or [inaudible 00:00:04] with a timestamp. For the four-second dropout at page 143, line 12, insert [audio interruption 00:04:12-00:04:16] or the equivalent, and do not fill the gap with a guess. Check whether any backup recording, rough realtime file, or counsel's notes can verify the missing words; if so, compare and document the source. Notify both counsel promptly that a portion is unverified so they can supplement the record or stipulate. Your certification should not overstate certainty: certify what you can verify, and use accepted inaudible or overlap notations for what you cannot. Keep the original audio and your notes; do not overwrite the file.
3. What notations, certifications, and quality-control steps should you complete before delivering the 187-page expedited transcript?
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Before delivery, proofread the entire 187 pages against the audio, not just the rough draft. Verify case style, party and witness names, exhibit numbers, dates, and the page and line format required by the court. Run a name and term index for consistency, and check the specific pages around 1:12:44 and page 143 for the notations discussed. Confirm that all bracketed notations are accurate and consistently formatted, and that no one has edited the text after certification. Prepare the certificate of transcript and, if needed, a separate errata or notice page listing unresolved inaudible portions. Deliver the transcript with a cover letter that identifies the expedited deadline and any outstanding audio issues; keep a duplicate copy, the original audio, and the rough draft in your retention system. Do not backdate the certificate or certify before quality control is complete. If the five-day deadline cannot be met without sacrificing accuracy, notify counsel immediately and seek an extension rather than delivering an unverified product.