Court Reporter Tossed in Jail for Missing Transcript Deadlines, Fleeing Courthouse
A court reporter in Detroit is serving a 30-day contempt sentence based on accusations she repeatedly missed deadlines to produce a transcript and then left the courthouse when she was ordered to do the work.
The Detroit Free Press has the story. “Paulette Martin, an official reporter for Detroit’s 36th District Court, has gone from writer’s block to cell block,” the newspaper reports.
Wayne County’s presiding judge, Timothy Kenny, imposed the contempt sanction after twice extending the deadline and then offering a choice: Martin could serve five days in jail or produce the transcript. To make the job easier, court officials set up a courthouse work station and went one step further. “We even bought her lunch, and then she takes off—she just left,” Kenny told the newspaper. That resulted in a bench warrant for Martin’s arrest; the transcript was still unfinished when she returned to court four days later, the story says.
Kenny jailed another court reporter seven years ago, and she produced a transcript in one day, the story says.
Hat tip to Pat’s Papers.
