Court Reporting

The lecutre on Media Law was very interesting today. It gave me an idea of how The Court Reporters work. They play a critical role not only in judicial proceedings, but also at every meeting where the spoken lanugage word needs to be presrved as a written transcript

The Court Reporters can start reporting only if the case has been ACTIVE. The case is not active when the person gets arressted with no evidence. In this case the person can be kept by the police for 24 hours, unless the person becomes charged by the police which means that the case becomes ACTIVE. This is when the reporters can start writing about it. They can write anything that has been said in the Court but only if the judge is present. Sometimes written accounts of spoken language is necessary for correspondence, records, or legal proof, and court reporters provide those accounts

We focused on different types of crime. For anyone to be convicted of a criminal offence, guilt must be admitted or must be proven in court.
There are three main types of crime:

1. INDICTABLE-only offences, which are the most serious crimes, punishable by the longest prison terms. Examples for this type of crime would be murder, rape or robbery.

2. Either-way offences- such charges can be dealt with either at a Crown court or at a magistrates court. A magistrates can decide whether a particular case is a serious one which needs to be dealt with in Crown court, or if thr magistrates can deal with it

3. Summary offences are very minor ones comapre to the other two. Good examples for those are common assult, drunkenness. These are also relatively easy to deal with.

There are two types of magistrate- lay magistrates and district judges. Their main role is to deal with the majority of criminal court cases, however, because they have limited powers to sentence in the event of a convinction, the most serious cases go to the Crown courts.

It all seems to be pretty complicated, but once you get the main idea, it seems to be straightforward. We are supposed to go to a court in Winchester and sit there for an hour to see what it all looks like. It might be quite weird but I can't wait to see it! It will be so much easier to understand how it all works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOBs25_g23s

This look crazy!


Speak soon!