Full question:
How does an inmate declare indigency for the purposes of getting transcripts of his trial? We are being quoted almost $700 for just the motion hearing transcript. His attorney abandoned him after the trial and we are trying to get another attorney but he needs the transcripts to evaluate the case. We have been told and the law declares that if the person is indigent, they are entitled to one copy of the transcript free.
- Category: Courts
- Date:
- State: Georgia
Answer:
While the United States Supreme Court has said that a state need not furnish a transcript of proceedings in every case where a criminal defendant cannot buy such a transcript, generally speaking, if a transcript is necessary to adequate review of a conviction, such a transcript must be furnished free to an indigent defendant for the review of his or her conviction. Although the state need not purchase a stenographer's transcript in every case where a defendant cannot buy it, where the grounds of appeal make out a colorable need for a complete transcript, the burden is on the state to show that a portion of the transcript or an alternative will be sufficient to permit an effective appeal on such grounds.
Civil litigants do not generally receive free transcripts at public expense. Free transcripts are only available in the exceptional civil case, such as a quasi-criminal action involving the termination of parental rights. However, while an indigent civil appellant is not entitled to have a complete record of the proceedings, including a transcription prepared for them at public expense, the granting of an application to proceed in forma pauperis does entitle the pauper to special accommodation with respect to creation of the record. Thus, in lieu of providing the reviewing court with a record of proceedings, a pauper may be permitted to prepare a statement of the evidence of proceedings from the best available means, including the litigant's own recollection, and the trial court then has the duty to approve such statements and incorporate them into the record.
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