Election Day! Stenography! CashApps!

Today is Primary Election Day in New York City.

There are only three positions on my district’s ballot. One is Judge of the Civil Court – District 8th Municipal Court District. From the Office of Court Administration sourced by Wikipedia:

Civil Court of NYC is “the court that decides lawsuits involving claims for damages up to $50,000 and includes a small claims part (small claims court) for cases involving amounts up to $10,000 as well as a housing part (housing court) for landlord-tenant matters, and also handles other civil matters referred by the New York Supreme Court.” It consists of three parts, Housing, Small Claims, and General Civil.

The election of civil court judges is bringing to mind the zine, Courts of Contempt by Hell Gate and Type Investigations. Courts of Contempt gives a peek into the bizarre and shadowy judge selection process. There is one article that is particularly relevant to the work here at Pepper Scotch.

“How We Got Records for Courts of Contempt" by Allie Conti. In this article, Conti delves into the process of acquiring court records. Before reading, I assumed that New York’s public records’ law covered ALL court records. But no!

In order to get records like arraignments, decisions, and trial minutes (! like what else is there?), people like lawyers appealing convictions for clients and dogged reporters from Hell Gate need to contact and pay court reporters individually. Because court reporters—despite being state employees--function like small business when it comes to these public-but-not-public records. Court reporters hold these documents and can charge what ever price they wish with little oversight. There is a “90-day deadline on reporters filing transcripts to appellate lawyers,” but according to the lawyers interviewed by HG and TI, that is just not observed in practice. These folks set their own timelines. Many use Venmo and CashApp!

Whenever I read about a dysfunctional governmental process, I am surprised by what is excluded from the civic imagination as a target for digital efficiency. Transcription software has been around for decades (much of AI-at-work is transcription and translation software). Conti quotes a 2019 Marshall Project report that by 2015 “more than a dozen states were using audio and visual recordings in lieu of reporters in at least some courtrooms.” I would think that digitizing and centralizing the court report process would be embraced by “reduce waste”/budget conscious politicians. And yet, here in New York, lawyers need to send CashApps and cross their fingers that they receive the requested documents on time and in completion (many don’t!).

I am not calling for court reporters to be replaced with a camera and Otter.ai. But I will pay more attention to where and where not NYS decides to implement AI-branded software within our civic processes.