Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/9809
Title: Transcripts in the legal system
Contributor(s): Fraser, Helen B  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2010
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/9809
Abstract: Transcription plays an important role in many parts of the legal process. For example: • transcripts provide a lasting public record of courtroom proceedings; • transcripts provide a convenient reference to evidence gathered via formal processes, such as recorded police interviews; • transcripts provide interpretation of evidence consisting in surreptitious recordings, such as telephone intercept or listening device product. Such artifacts are all called "transcripts", but there is a significant difference in their status. On the one hand, the accuracy of courtroom transcripts is accepted as a cornerstone of the legal process, seldom questioned by either defence or prosecution. On the other, the correct transcription of audio evidence can be the subject of vigorous but ultimately unresolvable debate. Consider, for a famous example, David Eastman's whispered soliloquy, recorded by a listening device in his house after the 1989 shooting of Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester in Canberra. Did it contain the words "I killed Winchester", or was it rather "I kept watching her"? There is no way to be absolutely certain. Between these two extremes lie many points on a long continuum of accuracy and verifiability. In using transcripts of various kinds, it is clearly desirable that they be treated appropriately according to their location on that continuum. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Source of Publication: Expert Evidence, p. 100-1-100-13054
Publisher: Thomson Reuters
Place of Publication: Sydney, Australia
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008: 200499 Linguistics not elsewhere classified
200401 Applied Linguistics and Educational Linguistics
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008: 940499 Justice and the Law not elsewhere classified
HERDC Category Description: B1 Chapter in a Scholarly Book
Publisher/associated links: http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20004305?selectedversion=NBD41523600
http://www.thomsonreuters.com.au/catalogue/ProductDetails.asp?id=8205
http://www.thomsonreuters.com.au/catalogue/CartDetails.asp?CatalogID=11254
Series Name: Expert Evidence
Series Number : Code: 3593CHAP100
Editor: Editor(s): Ian Freckelton and Hugh Selby
Appears in Collections:Book Chapter

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