Following an embarrassing conflict over the alleged alteration of a trial transcript in a judge’s chamber, the Southern District of New York is expected to make a policy change.
Southern District Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey said yesterday that the district’s Court Reporters Committee is expected to recommend new guidelines on the editing of final trial transcripts, a practice usually employed by judges to correct minor errors in the record, but one that caused controversy in the aftermath of a criminal case tried before Judge Deborah Batts in 1998.
