Hurricane Isaac postpones Guantanamo Bay trials for lawyers and court reporters
Hurricane Isaac has had an effect on more than just levees and dams. During its development as a tropical storm, the squall was set to pass over Cuba, causing the looming trial of the five alleged terrorists that organized the September 11 attacks to be disrupted.
An internet outage and the threat of the Hurricane initially created a 24-hour delay in the trial, which led to an outright cancellation. The group of lawyers and court reporters were unable to even start the pretrial hearing as all parties were flown back state-side.
According to CNN, the internet outage was caused by a freight train accident near Baltimore which damaged necessary fiber-optic cables and eliminated internet service going to the military base.
Although the hearings may have gotten off to a bumpy start, the actual trials aren't projected to begin until 2016, according to the Telegraph.
"The prosecution has been preparing for this case for 11 years," James Connell, a defense lawyer in the case, told the source. "It makes sense that now that they have gotten around to bringing this case that there needs to be time for all of the information they have spent 11 years digesting that the defense needs time to digest that."
All of this information needs to be recorded by real-time court reporters.
From a small deposition hearing of Al Capone to providing real-time captioning of the Olympic Games, this blog has reported on how court reporters have had a front row seat into some of the greatest trials in American culture. As this is a military trial, court reporters will be needed to record the depositions, hearings and trials of the five alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay.
As important as it is for the reporters at Gitmo to provide accurate deposition transcripts for the Department of Justice, it's just as important for any other litigation. In order to get the best transcripts available, lawyers in the Midwest may want to partner with Wisconsin court reporters.
