The Post-Verdict Request to 'Clean Up' a Certified Record
You were the official reporter for a six-day civil jury trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Law Division; the verdict was for the plaintiff. The defense has appealed and served a request for the report of proceedings, and the trial judge entered a briefing order setting a filing deadline. Defense counsel now telephones with three requests: (1) he wants his client's testimony 'cleaned up' - remove the double negatives and the 'you knows' - because the appellate justices will read it; (2) he wants a sidebar about a pretrial settlement figure 'stricken from the transcript,' calling it prejudicial and irrelevant; (3) he wants delivery in ten days, although your calendar already holds about 2,300 pages of prior work. Plaintiff's counsel separately asks that a juror's written note, which the judge read aloud into the record, be left out because the note was never marked as an exhibit. One exhibit, a repair invoice, was marked for identification but excluded after a sustained hearsay objection. The judge sealed a portion of the record after a hearing outside the jury's presence.
1. Which of defense counsel's three requests can you honor, and by what mechanism?
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The governing principle is that the transcript is a verbatim record of what was said; a reporter may correct only transcription and typographical errors, and even those should be documented rather than made silently.
- 'Cleaning up' the testimony - refuse. Grammar, double negatives and verbal tics are the witness's actual words. They can matter on appeal (capacity, impeachment, the tenor of the testimony), and a smoothed transcript misleads the reviewing court. You may not make a witness sound better.
- Deleting the settlement sidebar - refuse. If it was taken down in open court on the record, it is part of the proceedings. The remedy is a motion to strike or to seal, decided by the judge. If the judge orders sealing, you still transcribe the material and seal it; you never excise it.
- Ten-day delivery - promise only what is achievable. Give counsel a written estimate and ask the court for a reasonable extension. A court-ordered deadline missed without explanation can expose the reporter to a rule to show cause, so communicate early and in writing rather than absorbing the risk privately.
Any change after certification must rest on a stipulation of the parties approved by the court or on a court order, and the correction must appear on the record.
2. How should the sealed portion and the juror's note be treated in the transcript?
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Treat the two differently.
Sealed material. Transcribe it fully, because the record must be complete for the appellate court, but segregate and label it. Include a prominent notice - for example, 'SEALED BY ORDER OF COURT DATED ____' - at the point where the seal begins and in the index, and deliver it in the manner the sealing order directs (separately, under seal, or only to the court and reviewing court). You may not summarize, redact or omit it on your own authority, and you should not disclose its contents to anyone outside the order's scope.
The juror's note. If the judge read the note into the record in open court, the reading is part of the proceedings and must be transcribed whatever its exhibit status. The better practice is for the note itself to be marked as a court's exhibit and lodged with the clerk; if it was not, transcribe the text as read and note '[Whereupon the court read the juror's note into the record]'. If counsel's objection leaves you uncertain whether the actual note was received, ask the judge to clarify on the record rather than guessing. Whether a document was formally marked does not control whether the words spoken about it belong in the transcript.
3. What must your certificate state, and how do you handle the excluded exhibit?
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The certificate is the reporter's personal attestation, so it must be accurate and must correspond exactly to what you are delivering. It should identify you by name and credential (certified shorthand reporter, license number if your style includes it), state your capacity as official or freelance reporter for the proceeding, identify the court, case caption and number, the dates and nature of the proceeding, the total number of pages, and state that the transcript is a true and complete record of the proceedings had, followed by your signature and the date. If you have made corrections, note them on the certificate or in a separate correction page rather than altering certified pages.
The excluded exhibit. Because the invoice was marked for identification but excluded, do not reproduce it as an admitted exhibit. Transcribe the marking, the objection and the court's ruling verbatim, and show it as 'marked for identification - not admitted' or 'refused' in the exhibit index. Exhibits remain in the clerk's custody; the transcript documents their status, it does not recreate them. This preserves the appellate issue without misrepresenting the record.