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4.5.      Transcript retrieval in the courtroom


Transcript should be able to be retrieved and displayed in the
courtroom, irrespective of whether real-time transcript reporting is
used. If real-time CAT is not used, the current day's transcript can
not be retrieved and displayed. The equipment which has been installed
in a Western Australian courtroom principally for use in the Rothwells
trial has, in the interim, been used by Seaman J in a number of
criminal trials to display transcript to the jury on screen
simultaneously with the judge reading extracts to them. He             [PP65]
reports that the juries were very enthusiastic about transcript of
evidence which they had heard being made available to them in this way.
It is intended that it will also be used for this purpose in the Rothwells
trial. The provision of transcript retrieval to the jury after they retire is
discussed in Chapter 6. The same facility, when not being used for display to
the jury, could be used by the judge for transcript retrieval. Prosecution and
defence would normally have their own transcript retrieval systems, because of
the inclusion of their own indexing and annotations, but in some circumstances
there would also be benefit in all parties having access in court to the same
transcript retrieval system, provided security and confidentiality of what was
being accessed could be guaranteed. We therefore recommend as follows:

   Courtroom facilities should, where possible, include provision for the
   retrieval and display of transcript in as flexible a manner as possible.
   


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