An alcoholic Manhattan court stenographer went rogue, channeling his inner "Shining" during a high-profile criminal trial and repeatedly typing, "I hate my job, I hate my job" instead of the trial dialogue, sources told The Post.
The bizarre antics by Daniel Kochanski, who has since been fired, wreaked havoc on some 30 Manhattan court cases, sources said, and now officials are scrambling to repair the damage.
One high-level source said his "gibberish" typing may have jeopardized hard-won convictions by giving criminals the chance to claim crucial evidence is missing.
Rogue alcoholic court reporter kept writing 'I hate my job'
All work and no play makes the transcript very interesting.
Tags: big brother, doomed, pranks
One Response:
My first thought was that it's weird that my country won't let you take so much as a stills camera into court, while the US has footage of the day's biggest trials on national TV; yet my country records trials as PCM data while the US still has stenographers in court. Here the remaining stenographers work in a central pool, producing transcripts by request only, with the data itself as the authoritative record of events in court.
Then I did some research, the US tried digital recording, it ran a medium-sized trial and went back to stenographers. Throughout the trial advocates for stenography emphasised fears that audio recordings of a trial might miss some vital detail and cause a conviction to be overturned on appeal. The unquestioned professionalism and reliability of stenographers was a recurring theme of their argument. No stenographer would jeopardise a trial by leaving it unclear what exactly was said or by who...
This story then, is hugely ironic.