Davey v. City of Atlanta, 48899
| Decision Date | 29 January 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 48899,48899,1 |
| Citation | 130 Ga.App. 687,204 S.E.2d 322 |
| Parties | , 67 A.L.R.3d 1010 Martha DAVEY v. CITY OF ATLANTA |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
George G. Finch, Atlanta, for appellant.
Paul Walker, Sol., Robert A. Harris, Atlanta, for appellee.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
The defendant was convicted in the City Court of Atlanta of violation of an ordinance and petitioned for certiorari to the superior court. The respondent filed an answer to which the defendant filed exceptions and a traverse. After a hearing the court dismissed the petition and recited in the order that the answer was incomplete in that it did not include a complete record of the case and that the exceptions filed did not meet the requirements of Code Ann. § 19-302.
One of the grounds in the petition is that after the defendant entered a plea of not guilty, the defendant's counsel had with him a small pocket sized tape recorder with which he attempted to record the proceedings but the trial judge would not permit its use. This was admitted by the respondent and the refusal was based on the ground that this manner of recording is prohibited in most courts 'and at best is only permitted under supervision and at discretion of the presiding judge.' One portion of the petition contained a summary of the testimony of the witnesses at the trial to which the respondent in his answer stated 'with noted exceptions, the section is admitted as to substance but was not verbatim or complete.' Held:
1. The City Court judge admitted that he refused to permit the use of the tape recorder by counsel as counsel was obviously attempting to make a verbatim transcript of the proceedings. In this the judge erred. There is no valid reason why a party or his counsel may not use a recording device in order to assist in perfecting a record. The use of an electronic device, of course, is subject to the supervision of the trial judge who may take reasonable measures to assure that the use of the device does not interfere with the dignity, order and decorum of the court. What the trial judge may not do is to arbitrarily deny counsel the right to use a recording device. Under the facts of this case, the court's refusal to permit the use of the recording device was arbitrary and constituted a denial of due process. In this connection see Estep v. State, 129 Ga.App. 909, 201 S.E.2d 809. It should be emphasized that the holding here is limited to the use by counsel or...
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State v. Clark
...by the trial court's denial of his request to tape-record the proceedings. Appellant cites 67 A.L.R.3d 1013 and Davey v. City of Atlanta, 130 Ga.App. 687, 204 S.E.2d 322 (1974), as support for this proposition. However, Davey, supra, involved a non-record court. Denial of permission to tape......
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Rutledge v. State, 36028
...v. State, 234 Ga. 216(3), 215 S.E.2d 223, supra. The present case is distinguishable on its facts from Davey v. City of Atlanta, 130 Ga.App. 687(1), 204 S.E.2d 322 (1974), in that in this case an official reporter was available and the trial court did not arbitrarily deny defense counsel th......
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...his own use. The only issue argued at trial was appellant's liability for attorney fees. Under our decision in Davey v. City of Atlanta, 130 Ga.App. 687(1), 204 S.E.2d 322 (1974), the trial judge's refusal was error. Nevertheless, we do not find that the appellant was harmed by this error s......