Having an accurate court reporting service on hand is an important part of any trial, and Court Scribes is one of the best. But there are obviously a lot of other parties involved in making a trail successful: attorneys and their staff members, an impartial judge, and in the case of a criminal prosecution a jury of your peers.

But how does that panel of people hearing the case come to be seated?

The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution grants criminal defendants the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury representing a cross-section of the community. The right to a jury only applies to offenses in which the penalty is imprisonment for longer than six months.

The jury’s job is to review the evidence presented in a trail and deliberating then coming to a conclusion about what the penalty for the accused should be.

Jury selection happens in two parts, random selection and “voir dire,” when attorneys question potential jurors to see if they are suitable to sit on that specific jury.

In the random selection process, the state or federal district chooses names randomly from lists including rosters of registered voters, people who hold driver’s licenses in the state, or people receiving unemployment benefits, for example, according to findlaw.com.

People who are randomly selected from one of these lists will receive a notice in the mail telling they will be expected to report to serve on a certain date.

“Voir Dire” is the process the court and the attorneys use to narrow down the pool of candidates to 12. Sometimes a judge will randomly excuse some people from duty if there are too many.

But usually, during the voir dire process, the judge and attorneys will interview each juror about their background and beliefs and look for reasons to object to jurors. The two types of objections include “peremptory challenges” and “challenges for cause.”

When an attorney challenges a juror for cause, it usually means there is something in the juror’s background that would prevent them from being objective about a case. In federal courts, each side has an unlimited number of challenges for cause, but each side only gets a limited number of peremptory challenges. Attorneys do not need to give reasons for peremptory challenges.

Looking for something to do in your free time that will include service to your country? Love history as much as court reporting?

Then the Library of Congress has a volunteer job for you.

The Library of Congress is looking for volunteers to volunteers to transcribe writings left behind by some of the greatest names in history, including Abraham Lincoln, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Civil War veterans, Civil Rights campaigner Rosa Parks, leaders of the woman’s suffrage movement, American poets, important figures in the history of psychiatry, and other important historical figures, Mental Floss reported.

The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress contain more than 40,550 documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln when he was a lawyer, representative from Illinois, and 16th president of the United State, about half of which are available online. Of those 20,000, about half have already been transcribed, the Library said.

The Library’s goal is to have volunteers transcribe all of the remaining materials as well so that they are easy for people to search online using key words.

The goal of the Letters to Lincoln Challenge 2018 is to transcribe all 28,000 pages by December 31, but more opportunities will be available beyond the end of the year.

Documents include not only letters written by Lincoln but also by correspondents including friends and associates, well-known political figures and reformers, and individuals and organizations.

Because the documents are hand written, they are difficult for computers to read and decode. Some are faded and written in difficult to read cursive, Mental Floss said.

To learn how to help with the project, log on to crowd.loc.gov, the library’s crowdsourcing site, and create an account on the registration page. Documents that are transcribed are then reviewed by another registered volunteer.

Carla Hayden, a librarian at the Library of Congress, said the project is a good way to serve the public good while learning about history at the same time.

“The pages awaiting transcription at crowd.loc.gov represent some of the diversity of the Library’s treasure, and the metadata that will result from these transcriptions mean these digitized documents will have even greater use to classrooms, researchers, or anyone who is curious about these historical figures,” Hayden said.

For more detailed instructions on how to help, visit the library’s guide here.

A former student at a for-profit court reporting school that had locations in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington is suing the U.S. Department of Education for not forgiving her student loans.

The school, called the Court Reporting Institute, went out of business.

The school allegedly told students that its three-year program in legal transcription would get them a high-paying job, the Seattle Times reported.

State investigators shut down the school in 2006, saying it used deceptive business practices.

The former student who filed the lawsuit, Christine Gold, said she incurred nearly $36,000 in debt while attending the school.

Borrowers misled by a school are eligible for federal student-loan forgiveness, per the Times.

The nonprofit National Student Legal Defense Network filed the suit in the District of Columbia last week, naming the Department of Education and its secretary, Betsy DeVos, as defendants.

The Department of Education had no comment for the Times because the litigation is pending.

DeVos’ critics say her department has been slow to process claims and is too easy on for-profit colleges.

According to the lawsuit, Gold was the sole earner in her household when she started attending the Court Reporting Institute in 2001. She says she was told by an admissions officer that she would make $65,000 a year after she graduated from a three-year program.

Complaints against the school showed that it repeatedly misrepresented educational practices, instructor qualifications, graduation rates, program length, employment prospects and the amount of financial aid available, and that it did not make mandated changes.

Gold said she never seemed to be making progress toward graduation despite the classes she finished and after nearly three-and-a-half years, she withdrew in 2005 with $35,750 in federal loans.

Because she was unable to pay the money back without a better job and because of interest accrued, she now owes around $62,000.

If you’re looking for the best way to create a record of court proceedings, you need the best court reporting system, so CourtScribes is where you should turn.

Digital court reporting is a relative newcomer to the field of court reporting, per CourtReporter.edu. But this subspecialty of court reporting has made its way into a number of courtrooms across the United States, thanks to advancements in digital recording.

The digital revolution led by people like the Miami court reporters of CourtScribes includes blockchain.

CourtScribes uses professional-level recording systems to bring the most sophisticated digital technology into the private marketplace and provide the highest quality transcripts.

The company uses computer-based digital systems with enhanced features that perform recording functions with convenience, flexibility, and economy.

Electronic recording equipment is overseen by an experienced reporter at all times. The reporter simultaneously takes notes that are time-linked to the corresponding recording, so people involved with the case can instantly find the point in the record where they want to re-listen.

Because primary participants are assigned to separate, discrete sound channels, it’s easy to identify who’s who. A typical four-channel system individually records the judge, witness, plaintiff’s attorney and defendant’s attorney. When two or more parties talk at the same time, digital reporting captures each voice clearly on its own separate sound channel.

The recording process captures all words exactly as they are spoken without worrying about a person being unable to understand accents or complex medical or technical terms. During the transcription process, the audio can be replayed as needed to verify any questions.

Any portion of a recorded proceeding can be played back over audio speakers whenever the judge or counsel requires it.  Audio also can be replayed for jurors if they wish to review actual spoken testimony during deliberations.

Counsel can also obtain copies of the actual recording with digital annotations “hot-linked” to the audio so points of interest can be located quickly and efficiently.

Another benefit is that both log notes and audio files are transmitted over the internet, reducing or eliminating shipping costs and delivery delays. Storage and archiving are efficient because audio and log notes are saved as computer files.