Editorial: Public proceedings, private profit: The Donald Trump court transcripts must be freely available to all
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Voila: Tuesday night, posted on the website of ABC News, there was the full 32-page transcript from Donald Trump’s arraignment, allowing the world to read precisely what transpired in the most closely watched hearing of the decade. And then, poof, it disappeared the next day, the casualty of an asinine system that prevents records of court proceedings from being read without first being purchased from a court reporter. Those clever enough to use the Internet Archive — go ahead, no one can stop you — can still access it, but nobody else can. This is madness. And it must change before Trump’s case advances.
The Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a “public trial,” and in New York, if you are one of the few who lines up and is lucky to get inside the courtroom, that’s the case. Otherwise, trials are public in name only. It’s against the law to broadcast them, either via audio or video. It’s even illegal for anyone to enter the courtroom and hit a simple button on their unobtrusive phone, watch or other device to record what happens for the sake of accuracy or posterity.
Capturing what happens inside a hall of justice is the sole prerogative of a salaried government employee who sits near the judge, the official record-keeper of the proceedings. Created at government expense, on government time, inside of a government building, that record should be freely available to anyone who wants it, without being charged a couple of bucks per page and being barring from sharing it or making copies.
While it makes sense for there to be one and only one formal transcript of a hearing, and while it is essential to protect the identity of witnesses, especially in sex crimes trials and those involving juveniles, it offends a free society to prevent non-official transcripts from existing. It is especially outrageous to empower salaried court reporters to sell the transcripts.
Like the judges and clerks and uniformed officers, court reporters work on behalf of the public. Free the Trump transcripts.
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