Testimony of SANDRA HALSEY at the Sandra Halsey Disciplinary Hearing 1 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS 2 3 BEFORE THE 4 5 TEXAS COURT REPORTERS CERTIFICATION BOARD 6 7 AUSTIN, TEXAS 8 9 10 11 IN THE MATTER OF THE * CAUSE NO. 99-0308-07 12 DISCIPLINARY HEARING * 13 OF SANDRA HALSEY * 14 ****************************************************** 15 BEFORE THE HONORABLE SID HARLE, 16 CHAIRMAN PRESIDING 17 ****************************************************** 18 EXCERPT OF DISCIPLINARY HEARING 19 ****************************************************** 20 BE IT REMEMBERED that on the 5th day of 21 June 1999, the above-entitled and numbered cause 22 came on for hearing in the State Bar Building, 1414 23 Colorado, Austin, Travis County, Texas, before the 24 Honorable Sid Harle, Chairman, whereupon the 25 following proceedings were had, to-wit: CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 APPEARANCES: 2 3 FRANK J. KNAPP 4 Assistant Attorney General Administrative Law Division 5 209 W. 14th & Colorado Street P.O. Box 12548 6 Austin, Texas 78711-2548 (512) 463-2100 7 Fax: 463-2063 FOR THE COMPLAINANT 8 GEORGE R. MILNER and RONALD L. GORANSON 9 Mimner Lobel Goranson Sorrels Udashen & Wells 10 Chateau Plaza, Suite 1500 2515 McKinney Avenue, LB 21 11 Dallas, Texas 75201(214) 651-1121 12 Fax: 953-1366 FOR THE RESPONDENT 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 (At the conclusion of a portion of this 2 trial, which is not transcribed for the 3 purposes of this record, the following 4 proceedings took place in open court with 5 all parties present:) 6 SANDRA HALSEY, 7 having been first duly sworn testified as follows: 8 DIRECT EXAMINATION 9 BY MR. KNAPP: 10 Q. Will you please state your full name for 11 the record. 12 A. Sandra Marion Day Halsey. 13 Q. Are you certified by the Court Reporter's 14 Certification Board? 15 A. Yes, I am. 16 Q. What is your certification number? Wrong 17 question. 18 A. That's right, of all questions. I think 19 it's 308. I'm not sure. 20 Q. How long have you been certified by the 21 Board? 22 A. Ever since the first year they started it; 23 25 years ago, maybe 26, 27. I don't know. 24 Q. Are you also a board member of the Court 25 Reporter's Certification Board? CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 A. Yes, I am. 2 Q. When were you so appointed? 3 A. Two years ago. 4 Q. So you're in your second year of a 5 six-year term; is that correct? 6 A. I'm starting my third year now of a 7 six-year term. 8 Q. Okay. Third year. I'm sorry. By whom 9 are you presently employed? 10 A. Right now, Dallas County. 11 Q. And what are you doing for Dallas County? 12 A. Right now, I'm working in the -- for the 13 County Clerk's Office. 14 Q. And what is your exact job description? 15 A. Cashier. 16 Q. In 1997, were you the official court 17 reporter of the Criminal District Court No. 3 of 18 Dallas County, Texas? 19 A. That's correct. 20 Q. And were you the court reporter during the 21 trial of the State of Texas -- styled the State of 22 Texas versus Dorothy Lynn Routier under Dallas 23 County Cause No. F96-39973--MJ? 24 A. Yes, sir. 25 Q. Were you also the court reporter when this CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 case was changed on venue to Kerr County and it was 2 continued under Cause No. A-96-253? 3 A. Yes, sir. 4 Q. And did you attend the trial of this case 5 each and every day, both in Dallas County and in 6 Kerr County? 7 A. Yes, sir. 8 Q. And Ms. Routier was found guilty of 9 capital murder; is that correct? 10 A. That's correct. 11 Q. And she appealed the decision to the Court 12 of Criminal Appeals? 13 A. Yes, sir. It's an automatic appeal. 14 Q. Just very briefly, did -- when the 15 reporter's record was due with the Court of Criminal 16 Appeals, you did not file it on time; is that 17 correct? 18 A. That's correct. 19 Q. And there were several extensions granted; 20 is that correct? 21 A. Yes, sir. 22 Q. And then you were -- let's see. You filed 23 it, I believe, on the first filing on February 23, 24 1998, with the Court of Criminal Appeals? 25 A. No, sir, that's not correct. The first CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 filing was -- this exhibit right here -- when I took 2 the whole record that I had finished, which was 3 February 6 of 1998. 4 Q. All right. You filed it on February 6th 5 of 1998? 6 A. Yes, sir. 7 Q. And was that record returned to you as not 8 being sufficient at that time? 9 A. Yes, sir. 10 Q. And when it was returned, did the Court 11 advise you that, you had not complied with Rules 34.6 12 and 35 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure and of 13 the requirements of the appendix for criminal cases? 14 A. I'm not sure about those cites, but if you 15 say that's it. That wasn't my understanding of why 16 they returned it. 17 Q. Okay. All right. I believe I lifted that 18 right out of the language of one of the orders. 19 A. You may have. I just don't -- I don't 20 have that memorized, those numbers. 21 Q. I understand. Was a judgment of contempt 22 entered against you on March 26, 1998, for not 23 having the record in by that date? 24 A. Yes, sir. 25 Q. Did you -- were you confined to county CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 jail or did you serve 72 hours at home or what was 2 the deal on that? 3 A. I talked to the -- the sheriff and the 4 first assistant, Chief Knolles. And they -- 5 Chief Knolles told me to report to him the first 6 Monday -- I think it was Monday or Tuesday -- at 7 8:30 and that I was to be in the courtroom doing my 8 work until 4:30 for three days. That was my 9 under -- that was what happened. And then I went 10 home at 4:30. 11 Q. All right. Did you file with the Court of 12 Criminal Appeals on April 24, 1998, a reporter's 13 record that was accepted for filing at that time? 14 A. Yes, sir. 15 Q. All right. And on that record that was 16 submitted, did you proofread that record yourself? 17 A. I didn't have much time to do that because 18 my scopist finished it late. And so the answer is, 19 no, sir. 20 Q. Is that something you would customarily do 21 on a record is -- 22 A. Absolutely not. 23 Q. -- proofread it? 24 A. Proofread, yes, it would. Excuse me for 25 interrupting you. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. Isn't it true that during this period of 2 time when you were preparing the reporter's record 3 and when you initially filed it and even after that, 4 that you advised a number of people that were 5 associated with this case that there were no 6 audiotapes of the evidentiary and the sentencing 7 portion of that trial? 8 A. Repeat that question again. 9 Q. Did you not advise several people that 10 were associated in this Routier case in one way or 11 another, whether they were lawyers or court 12 reporters that were helping out or the judge, but 13 you advised a number of people associated with that 14 case that there were, in fact, no audiotape 15 recordings of the evidentiary and the sentencing 16 portion of the case. 17 A. Well, if I can make a clarification on 18 that. 19 Q. Please. 20 A. I said no usable audiotapes. I had made 21 tapes. I thought I repeated over and over. I made 22 tapes, but found out because I had changed equipment 23 from the voir dire portion of the trial until we 24 went back in January, different equipment and that 25 those -- that the jury trial portion, those tapes CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that I made were not -- I couldn't hear them. 2 Q. Well, let me ask you this: How many of 3 the tapes did you play back and listen to determine 4 that you could not hear them? 5 A. I put two different ones in the 6 transcriber that was in my office and I could hear 7 nothing but static. And that -- that's all I heard. 8 Q. And when did you do that, approximately, 9 approximate date? 10 A. Approximate date? Middle or end of 11 February at my office. 12 Q. Well, didn't you have a question for -- 13 let me back up. Who prepared the reporter's record 14 for you? 15 A. Who prepared it? 16 Q. Well, who -- who gave you the initial 17 draft that you did not proofread? 18 A. If you mean who were my scopists? 19 Q. Who were your scopist? 20 A. I had two scopist, Michele Reynolds, who I 21 gave the voir dire portion to, and Susy Crowley, who 22 I gave the jury trial portion to. 23 Q. And is Susy Crowley related to you? 24 A. That's my daughter. 25 Q. All right. Did you have any questions CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 when you were handed the record of -- if there 2 were -- by Susan Crowley if there were, in your 3 mind, no audiotapes that were legible, how she was 4 able to prepare the record without the audiotapes? 5 A. Well, at the time all these -- repeat your 6 question again. I want to answer that specific 7 question. 8 Q. At the time that you were presented the 9 reporter's record by Susan Crowley? 10 A. Uh-huh. 11 Q. And you are thinking that there are no 12 legible audiotapes to back it up, wouldn't one of 13 your questions be to Susan how she prepared this in 14 such detail without the audiotapes as a backup 15 resource? 16 A. No, because I wrote the trial on 17 real-time. I had a screen sitting there in the 18 courtroom that the attorneys could watch during the 19 trial. And I -- as I wrote it on real-time, I felt 20 like that it would be okay, except she was to use 21 the tapes for backup if -- if there -- normally, if 22 .the tapes work. In this case, when I found out they 23 didn't work, I thought I will have to read over that 24 more carefully. But it was on real-time and nobody 25 objected to anything that they saw on the screen CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 during the trial. 2 Q. By real-time, do you -- are you typing 3 out? I don't quite understand what real-time is. 4 A. Okay. As you're writing it down on your 5 machine, it's a computerized machine. I have a 6 screen on my writer that prints it out in transcript 7 form. It translates it internally, prints it up 8 on -- not prints, but displays it on my screen. 9 Also, I had an external screen that was for the use 10 of the attorneys. And my understanding was they 11 watched the external screen during the trial. 12 Q. On October 30, 1998, did you appear in a 13 trial proceeding in this -- or trial hearing in this 14 Routier case before Judge Robert Francis? 15 A. Yes, sir. 16 Q. And did you then deny, under oath, that 17 there were any audiotapes existing for the trial 18 portion of the Routier case? 19 A. Yes, sir. 20 Q. Did you also deny that -- that you had -- 21 did you also testify that -- that you had listened 22 to some of the tapes and that they did not contain 23 any recording of the -- in other words, that the _ 24 were not legible? 25 A. Yes, sir. Not audible. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. Not audible, okay. 2 A. Yes, sir. 3 Q. Well, actually, weren't you testifying at 4 that hearing that there were no audiotapes, period? 5 You did not mention that you had somewhere between 6 100 and 150 audiotapes sitting in a warehouse, did 7 you?- 8 A. No, sir, I did not say there were no 9 audiotapes, period. 10 Q. Well, let me ask you here. On Page 11 of 11 the transcript from that hearing on October 30th, 12 which appears in the Board book -- at -- 13 MR. KNAPP: Well, do you know where 14 it appears in the Board book? 15 MR. LOMBARD: 41 to 45. 16 MR. KNAPP: Okay. 17 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) Appears on Page_45 of the 18 Board book. Could you read right -- what you said 19 right there? Actually ask the Court? 20 A. Is it this page? 21 Q. It's that page, yeah. I believe it is? 22 A. Uh-huh. Start reading where? 23 Q. Well, at the top of the page where it 24 says, "the Court" and then "okay." 25 A. "Okay. So there are no -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 "THE WITNESS: No audiotapes for the 2 trial. 3 "THE COURT: Audlotapes for the voir dire 4 only? 5 "THE WITNESS: Correct." 6 Q. All right. And you did not qualify that 7 at that point, did you? 8 MR. MILNER: Object to that, because 9 he's taking it out of context. If you read the 10 entire thing, you'll see the sequence of the 11 questions. 12 THE COURT: I'll overrule the 13 objection. You can pick it up. 14 MR. MILNER: Yes, sir. 15 THE COURT: You'll have an 16 opportunity to cross her. 17 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) So at least in that 18 portion of the transcript, you made an unequivocal 19 statement; is that correct? 20 A. Well, the question right before it where I 21 said, "Sure, the only tapes that I had where the 22 tape recorder was actually working were the ones 23 from the jury voir dire." Is that what you're 24 referring to? 25 Q. All right, right. But you did not say in CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 there that you had separate tapes that were not 2 working stored somewhere, you're just making a flat 3 statement, aren't you, on the next page, on Page 11? 4 A. Well, I don't guess I understand your 5 question. 6 Q. I guess my question is that: You made no 7 statement that there were 100 -- somewhere between 8 100 and 150 nonworking tapes of the trial. You just 9 make the unequivocal statement that there are no 10 tapes at that hearing? 11 A. No, sir, I did not make the unequivocal 12 statement that there were no tapes at that hearing. 13 Q. But you had not mentioned to anybody that 14 there were all these tapes sitting somewhere or 15 another, even if they worked or didn't work? 16 A. Sir, they never asked me to present the -- 17 the audiotapes from the voir dire at that time. I 18 would have -- I was looking for tapes for that. 19 Q. Right. 20 A. But I didn't know where they were. 21 Q. All right. Let me ask you this: As far 22 as the tapes go, did you give those tapes to your 23 scopist to use? 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. And why did you do that, if they were CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 non -- not audible tapes? 2 A. Okay. The box of tapes that you're 3 speaking of is every tape, the voir dire, the jury 4 trial, the entire thing, all the hearings, all the 5 tapes are in one box. And I told the two scopist, I 6 said, "This side of the box is the voir dire tapes. 7 This side of the box is the jury trial tapes. I 8 don't think these tapes on the jury trial are 9 working." And I left them there. Typically, they 10 just come and do their job each day. I don't hand 11 anything to them, they just see everything there. 12 say, "Here's the information sheet, the diskettes, 13 the notes. If you can't hear anything on the tapes, 14 go to the notes." 15 Q. Well, let me ask you: Do you have a 16 fairly close relationship with your daughter, 17 Sue Crowley? 18 A. Yes, I do. 19 Q. And you made the statement to her that you 20 thought that the audiotapes for the voir dire were 21 good tapes and that the tapes for the rest of the 22 trial portion of the case were not good audible 23 tapes, right? 24 A. That's correct. 25 Q. And wouldn't you expect your daughter to CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 come tell you that there were good tapes and there 2 was not the problem that you anticipated with the 3 tapes? 4 A. I don't -- I mean I wouldn't necessarily 5 expect that because we were working on so many other 6 trials. During this time was when she had a lot 7 going on in her life. I had a lot going on in my 8 life. If we ever discussed it, I sure don't 9 remember it. 10 Q. When was the first time that your daughter 11 told you that there were good, audible audiotapes? 12 A. After the hearing on October 30th. It was 13 a few days after that that I talked to her. 14 Q. And you came back, then, to the -- some 15 type of a prehearing conference on November 12 of 16 1998. And at that time, you knew that there were 17 audible audiotapes of this trial, at least the 18 evidentiary and the sentencing portion? 19 A. Yes, sir, I did know that. 20 Q. And did you not go in and advise the 21 Court -- not necessarily in a formal hearing, but 22 advise the people that they were there for the 23 prehearing conference again that there were no 24 audible audiotapes for that proceeding? 25 A. Yes, sir, I did tell him that. And CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that -- it was just Judge Francis and myself in his 2 office. Yes, sir, I did tell him that. 3 Q. And is it not true that -- that it 4 required a conference with your daughter and various 5 discussions where you saw that you had better admit 6 this, that you did admit that there were all these 7 audiotapes available for transcribing? 8 A. Yes, sir. 9 Q. How many volumes were there of the 10 transcript in the reporter's record? 11 A. Total from start to finish? 12 Q. Yes. 13 A. Fifty-three, I think. I'm not sure. 14 Q. Why didn't you, as your daughter prepared 15 each volume, review that volume when you received it 16 as opposed to waiting up until the time when you 17 received all 50 volumes and then would have to 18 review all of them at one time? 19 A. Because in the same time that they were 20 scoping, I went -- started working for 21 Judge Johnson. And I went into a court that is an 22 extremely high volume trial court. And I just was 23 working on those other cases, because everything I 24 took had to be turned fast. I had another scopist 25 that I brought in to do that part, those other CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 trials to help me with that. And I was editing her 2 work because she was new. I was spending more time 3 trying to get these other cases out waiting until 4 they finished, thinking I would have the time -- 5 more time to spend when I started their work, 6 proofing their work. 7 Does that answer your question? 8 Q. That does. Isn't it true that your -- 9 you're paid for the -- for each page of this record? 10 A. Yes, sir. 11 Q. And how much are you paid? 12 A. $3.50 for an original and two copies. The 13 original goes to the Court of Appeals, one copy goes 14 to the trial -- well, this is in -- wait a minute. 15 I think it's an original and three. One goes to the 16 DA -- one copy goes to the DA's office. One copy is 17 for the defense attorney. And in this one, since we 18 did an original and three, the third copy was for 19 the writ attorney. Might have charged four. It 20 seems like I started charging 3.50 and then the 21 auditor's office told me I was supposed to charge 22 for an extra copy since it was an original and three 23 rather than an original and two. So I might have 24 charged four, I'm not positive about that. 25 Q. So if the record is 45 volumes as opposed CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 to 50, you make additional money from the additional 2 volumes that are included; is that correct? 3 A. If -- yes, sir. 4 Q. And if you had extensive indexing, if you 5 had margins that were not as wide as they should be, 6 if you had blank spaces in the record, that would 7 actually add to the charges; is that right? 8 A. It would. 9 Q. Do you recollect when you initially handed 10 in the reporter's record how many volumes there were 11 and how many pages of indexes there were in the 12 various volumes? 13 A. No, sir. 14 MR. KNAPP: Would you mark this as 15 Complainant's Exhibit No. 10A. 16 (Complainant's Exhibit No. 10A was marked 17 for identification.) 18 THE COURT: We can't hear down here, 19 Mr. Knapp. What was that last -- 20 MR. KNAPP: Oh, I'm sorry. I asked 21 the reporter to mark this page I handed her as 22 Exhibit 10A, Complainant's Exhibit 10A. 23 THE COURT: All right. Thank you. 24 MR. KNAPP: And could you mark the 25 remaining pages as Complainant's Exhibit lOB, lOC CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 and lOD, please. 2 (Complainant's Exhibit Nos. lOB, lOC and 3 lOD were marked for identification.) 4 MR. KNAPP: Thank you. 5 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) Let me hand you this page 6 that's marked Complainant's Exhibit 10A and ask if 7 you can identify that. 8 A. Yes, sir. 9 Q. And what is it? 10 A. That's a statement that I turned in for 11 part of the -- I did partial billing. And that's 12 what this is, a partial billing. 13 MR. KNAPP: You all want to see 14 that? 15 Offer Complainant's Exhibit 10A into 16 evidence. 17 MR. MILNER: No objection. 18 THE COURT: It's admitted. 19 (Complainant's Exhibit No. 10A was 20 admitted into evidence.) 21 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) Let me ask you on this 22 letter that you wrote that's -- you wrote to the 23 County Auditor and is dated September 9, 1997. 24 You've got a list here of the volume number that 25 this applies to and is a charge for payment, is it CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 not? 2 A. Yes, sir. It's a statement, a bill. 13 Q. All right. Could you read just down this 4 list on the volume that you're referencing and how 5 many pages that it says are in that volume and how 6 many pages that are in that volume are also index 7 pages? 8 A. Yes, sir. Each line? 9 Q. Please. 10 A. Okay. Volume 20, Pages -- you want me to 11 read everything on the line. 12 Q. Well, if you'll just skip over actually 13 where it references the volume, how many pages are 14 this in that volume and then on -- 15 A. 98 index pages. 16 Q. And how many total pages were there 17 without the index pages? 18 A. Without it? 182. 19 Q. All right. There are 182 and then plus 20 there's 90; is that correct -- 21 A. Yes, 98. 22 Q. -- index pages? All right, 98. All 23 right. 24 A. Yes, sir. 25 Q. And drop down one more to the next volume, CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 how many pages does it say? 2 A. 68. 3 Q. And how many index pages? 4 A. 98. 5 Q. And drop down to the next one? 6 A. 290 pages. 7 Q. And how many index pages? 8 A. 98. 9 Q. Drop down to the next one? 10 A. 247 pages. 11 Q. How many index pages? 12 A. 98. 13 Q. Are there any more on there or is that it? 14 A. Yes, sir, there are more. 15 Q. Does it -- is it always 98 index pages in 16 each volume? 17 A. At this point of my billing process, 18 that's what it was, yes. 19 Q. All right. Can you account for why there 20 are 98 index pages in each volume? 21 A. Yes, sir, I can. 22 Q. What is the reason? 23 A. Well, because I had to keep an index 24 growing. According to the last record that I turned 25 in to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Mr. Miller sent CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 it back and had me include a mass -- a complete -- 2 he sent it back because he said I want a complete 3 index in every volume so that I can look in that 4 volume and see where that witness is. So I was 5 trying to comply with what my understanding was that 6 he told myself and Mr. Withrow. Mr. Withrow handled 7 all of that. And I made copies of the master 8 index. We put it back -- put that in the -- each 9 volume. And then they accepted the whole transcript 10 with a master -- complete copy of the master index 11 in every volume of the whole Jackie Barren Wilson 12 trial. That's not on this trial. It was the one I 13 did just before this one. 14 Q. Well, as I read this, it says State of 15 Texas versus Darley Lee -- 16 A. Yes, sir. 17 Q. -- Lynn Routier. 18 A. Yes, sir. So I was trying to do -- 19 Q. Oh, this is on -- 20 A. Trying to do -- on this trial trying to 21 clear up the problems that had happened on the trial 22 before. 23 Q. I see. So you had -- but you had a 24 complete index in each one of these volumes? 25 A. Yes, sir, up to that point. Since I was CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 doing a partial billing, that's what I had to do. 2 Q. And did you charge $4.25 a page for each 3 one of these 98 pages of index in each separate 4 volume? 5 A. If that's what it says there. 6 Q. Well, it appears that that is what it 7 says; is that -- 8 A. Yes, sir. 9 Q. And is that what you did in the case 10 before? 11 A. No, sir. 12 Q. Why did you change on this one? 13 A. Because in the case before, in the Jackie 14 Barron Wilson death penalty trial, I had followed 15 what I thought were the rules in the Code of 16 Criminal Procedure and done an index for each -- 17 pertaining to each volume and then had one master 18 index. The Court of Criminal Appeals -- and then I 19 had them all numbered in Roman numerals, which is 20 what the Code of Criminal Procedure shows. 21 The Court of Criminal Procedures -- I 22 mean, the Court of Appeals returned that to 23 Mr. Blake Withrow. He called me to his office and 24 we took all the copies and his letter that he had 25 from the Court of Criminal Appeals said, and he CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 called and talked -- Mr. Withrow talked to the clerk 2 at the Court of Criminal Appeals -- and I guess it 3 was Mr. Miller -- who said, "I want a complete, I 4 mean, a complete index in every volume of the entire 5 trial." 6 So we just made Xerox copies -- that was 7 80 volumes. We made Xerox copies of the entire 8 master index. We -- and then we renumbered ever 9 Roman numeral to Arabic numbers. And we rebound all 10 of those. And I didn't bill for those. I didn't 11 give a bill for those. I had already been paid for 12 the transcript, so I didn't rebill that. So this 13 time, I'm trying to do it right. I'm trying to show 14 that I have those index pages in every volume, which 15 was my understanding of the way he wanted it that 16 time. It's more like follow Mr. Miller's rules. 17 Q. Simply as a practical matter, do you think 18 it's fair in this situation where you charge for 19 these indexes at $4.50 a page when all you're doing 20 is Xeroxing the same index over and over again? 21 A. I wasn't Xeroxing it, I was printing it. 22 Q. All right. When you were printing it? 23 A. Do I think that's fair? 24 Q. Yes. 25 A. Yes, sir. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. As a charge against the State? 2 A. Yes, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I do. 3 Q. What about charging a total of 4 approximately $25,000 simply for the index in the 5 Routier case; is that also fair? 6 A. I don't know that that's true. $25,000. 7 I don't know that's true. 8 Q. What was your total charge for the 9 reporter's record? 10 A. I don't know, sir. You have the bills. 11 don't have the total. It's whatever -- as I stated, 12 I did partial billing. Every time I would do 13 however many pages, 5,000 or something, I would 14 tender to bill so that I could pay my scopist and 15 pay for the copying fees and people to produce that, 16 bind it and all that. 17 Q. All right. I recollect that Ms. Sommers, 18 I believe. I may have that wrong, Simmons. I'm 19 sorry. Ms. Simmons testified that she was charging 20 $32,000 for -- somewhere in the vicinity of $32,000 21 for reviewing the reporter's record and making the 22 necessary changes to it for the Court of Criminal 23 Appeals. Does that sound approximately correct to 24 you? 25 A. I have no idea. I cannot guess. I mean, CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 I think it's -- I don't know. 2 Q. You did charge a substantial amount for 3 the reporter's record, though, regardless of whether 4 it's 30 or 60,000? 5 A. Sir, I charged exactly what the Auditor's 6 office told me to charge for the record. It's set 7 out by their rules there how much they pay. And as 8 I stated, the first billing I was just charging 3.50 9 and the Auditor told me I was supposed to be 10 charging $4 or 4.25, whatever it is. 11 Q. Well, looking up and down this list, it 12 simply from this Exhibit 10A sometimes the index is 13 greater than the pages in the volume? 14 A. I agree. 15 Q. Sometimes it's half the amount. But 16 it's -- I doubt that it's ever more than -- well, 17 couple places -- one place I see -- two places it's 18 more than -- it's about one third. But anyway, 19 would it be fair to say that your charges for the 20 index were a fairly substantial percentage of the 21 total charge for the reporter's record in this 22 particular case? 23 A. On those particular volumes? 24 Q. All right. Just on Volumes 20 through 27? 25 A. Well, sir, I didn't think it was unfair CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 because I thought I was trying to do the record the 2 way Mr. Miller wanted it to begin with, was to 3 include that full index. I don't -- I don't do that 4 on any other records. I just did it on this one 5 because of the fact that I was trying to be overly 6 careful about everything and avoid any problems that 7 I anticipated could happen. Those were the only two 8 complaints I had before on the other record and I 9 was trying to avoid those complaints coming up. this 10 time. 11 Q. Before the Routier case and the case you 12 mentioned before, had you ever filed a growing index 13 in any case that -- where you had submitted the 14 reporter's record? 15 A. Before the Routier case and before -- 16 Q. And the other case that you mentioned. 17 A. Not that I'm aware of. I don't know of 18 any. I don't know. 19 Q. It's a possibility you have, though; is 20 that correct? 21 A. I don't recall any. 22 Q. So in other cases, it has not been your 23 usual practice, though, to prepare a growing index 24 in a criminal case for appellate purposes -- 25 A. No, sir. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. -- in the reporter's record? 2 A. It is not my usual practice. 3 Q. Could you go ahead and simply identify 4 these exhibits that are marked lOB, 10C and lOD? 5 MR. MILNER: Your Honor, in the 6 interest of time, we'll stipulate that those are 7 billings that Ms. Halsey sent into the Auditor in 8 Dallas. No argument about that. 9 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 10 THE COURT: Any objection to that, 11 Mr. Knapp? 12 MR. KNAPP: No, Your Honor. 13 THE COURT: Okay. Then so stipulated 14 for the record. And they're admitted. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 (Complainant's Exhibit Nos. lOB, 10C and 2 10D were admitted into evidence.) 3 MR. KNAPP: Thank you, Your Honor. 4 That's lOB through 10D. 5 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) And we have additional 6 situations where you've charged for at least a 7 fairly substantial portion of these additional 8 volumes or the index; is that correct? On 9 Exhibits -- 10 A. The same -- 11 Q. -- lOB and lOD? 12 A. Yes, sir. 13 Q. Okay. And you're -- 10D simply certifies 14 to the amount charged for the record; is that 15 correct? 16 A. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That's required by 17 the Auditor's office to attach that. 18 MR. LOMBARD: Mr. Knapp, might the 19 Board see the exhibit? 20 MR. KNAPP: Oh, certainly. I'm 21 sorry. Pass the witness. 22 CROSS-EXAMINATION 23 BY MR. MILNER: 24 Q. Ms. Halsey, at the time that the 25 Darley Routier case came up, of course, it was CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Initially set in Dallas County, was it not? 2 A. Yes, sir. 3 Q. And just briefly tell the Board how it got 4 moved to Kerrville? 5 A. Because there was a TV show on the nightly 6 news where the mother was at the grave side spraying 7 silly string and laughing a week after the burial of 8 the two children. And it caused an outrage in the 9 community, people calling the DA's office saying, 10 "File charges on this woman." And it became 11 apparent to Judge Tull, I'm sure, that he didn't 12 think she could get a fair trial there. 13 Q. So he decided to move it to Kerrville? 14 A. Yes, sir, out of the viewing area of that 15 TV area. 16 Q. And at that time, what was going on in 17 your life from a marriage standpoint or any other 18 particular problems you were having? 19 A. Well, at that time was when I discovered 20 that my husband was having an affair with a younger 21 woman who worked in that building. And her husband 22 worked in that same building, too. And I had 23 started confronting him about it just saying, "Just 24 break it up. She's -- you have no future with her. 25 Break it up and let's get some counseling for our CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 marriage and move on with our marriage." 2 Q. All right. 3 A. And I knew he was going with her at the 4 time. 5 Q. Did you talk to Judge Tull about not 6 wanting to go to Kerrville? 7 A. Yes, I did. The bailiff -- female bailiff 8 and myself both went and talked to him. And said -- 9 I said, "Judge, please don't make me go down there 10 Let me get Tommy Mullins to go down there, because 11 he can substitute. He can take it. Let me stay up 12 here and be the reporter up here." 13 Q. And what did Judge Tull say, 14 A. "No, I need you down there. I want my 15 staff intact." 16 Q. All right. So you went down, originally, 17 for the voir dire? 18 A. Yes, sir. 19 Q. How long did the selection of the jury 20 take or at least the interrogation of the jury? 21 A. My recollection four or five weeks, 22 something like that. 23 Q. Okay. And you used some type of equipment 24 for that portion of it? 25 A. Yes, sir, it was the new equipment that CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 had been -- that we had gotten for Criminal District 2 Court No. 3 out of our budget, some few months, 3 maybe several months before that. 4 Q. All right. Was there some break in time 5 between the interrogation of the prospective jurors 6 and the actual beginning of the trial? 7 A. Yes, sir. 8 Q. About how much time was in between there? 9 A. My recollection is that we finished with 10 the jury voir dire portion about November 19th 11 of '96. And we were supposed to come back and 12 start the trial January 2nd, roughly. 13 Q. All right. And did the child -- did the 14 trial begin at or near that date? 15 A. Yes, sir. 16 Q. Did you have some different equipment at 17 that time? 18 A. Yes, sir. 19 Q. Tell the Board what the difference was? 20 A. Well, in that period of time, Judge -- I 21 mean, Judge Tull had officially become retired, but 22 he wanted to go ahead and try the case. And so 23 Judge McDowell assigned him, then, to go ahead and 24 finish the trial. And so Judge Bobby Francis had 25 run for and been elected to Criminal District Court CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 No. 3. And he had Donna Hill as his court 2 reporter. So naturally, they wanted the equipment 3 that belonged to Criminal District Court No. 3. So 4 I had to use the equipment that was in -- assigned 5 to the 3 -- well, I went to use the equipment that 6 was used -- assigned to the 363rd, but the court 7 reporter that was subbing there needed that 8 equipment. So I went to the surplus to get the 9 equipment -- the recording -- Lanier recording 10 equipment out of surplus. 11 Q. Okay. And was that used in the trial, the 12 Routier trial? 13 A. Yes, sir, for the jury trial portion. 14 Q. And about how long did that portion of the 15 trial last? 16 A. Four to five weeks, a little over four 17 weeks. 18 Q. Were there hundreds, if not thousands, of 19 exhibits admitted into evidence? 20 A. Yes, sir. Thousands of pages. Hundreds 21 of actual exhibit numbers, hundreds and hundreds. 22 Q. Once you came back to Dallas, and briefly 23 as you can, just walk us through how you start 24 preparing the record for appeal? 25 A. Well, okay. When I came back, I had -- my CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 car was full of all the photographs, the paper 2 exhibits and things that I wanted to copy. I also 3 had the boxes of notes and tapes and everything. I 4 took it all up to my office. Is this what you 5 mean? 6 Q. Office where? 7 A. In the 363rd. 8 Q. All right. That's Judge Johnson's court? 9 A. Judge Johnson's court. Judge Faith 10 Johnson's court. So I was up there sorting out 11 which boxes needed to be sent over to be copied for 12 photographs. I was sorting out which copies were -- 13 I mean, which boxes were notes and tapes and 14 diskettes and all of that. So I took the box of 15 tapes and the two boxes of notes, I think it was. 16 And I was going to just take those back home to give 17 to my scopist. Is that what you mean? 18 Q. And did you take the box of tapes to your 19 home? 20 A. Yes, I did. 21 Q. How is it set up? Do you do work at your 22 home? 23 A. All the time. 24 Q. All right. And just briefly tell the 25 Board how that -- you have a separate office area CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 or -- 2 A. Yes, sir. 3 Q. -- what do you have? 4 A. I have a separate office. And I just have 5 a lot of cases going on at one time. But during the 6 day, I have a scopist that comes there and works at 7 my -- that was Michele Reynolds, who was doing the 8 voir dire. And she works on those jobs during the 9 day. And then she leaves about 4:30, 5:00, 5:30. 10 don't know, maybe 5:30 or 6:00. Because when I get 11 home, it's usually 7:00 or 8:00. And then I work 12 from then until 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, sometimes 3:00. 13 Sometimes I works all night and go back the next 14 day. 15 Q. Do Michele and your daughter both have 16 keys to the house and the office? 17 A. Yes, sir. 18 Q. So they come and go as they want to? 19 A. Yes, sir. 20 Q. All right. How did each of them come into 21 possession of the audiotapes? I realize you said 22 the voir dire went to Michele and the 23 guilt-innocence went to your daughter. How did they 24 physically get them? 25 A. I left them sitting there in my office on CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 the floor in the boxes. I said, "These are the 2 notes. If you can't hear anything on the tape, here 3 are the notes. You can find them on the notes. 4 Here are the diskettes. Should be -- everything 5 should be on the diskettes." And Susy was going to 6 take some time and train Michele on how to use this 7 software that we had. And so I didn't -- I never 8 did know when they started -- actually started on 9 the actual part of it. But Susy took a disk, put it 10 in there and was going to show Michele how to work 11 that. I told them at that time, I said, "I want 12 Michele to do the voir dire because I know those 13 tapes are good. I don't think there's anything on 14 these tapes. I've checked a couple of them. I 15 don't think there's anything on these tapes on the 16 trial, but they're there. If you can hear anything 17 on them, fine. But I couldn't." 18 Q. Do you know whether or not Susy took those 19 tapes? 20 A. I don't remember ever noticing one way or 21 the other because they just were doing their jobs 22 and I was working on other appeals. Because the 23 first thing I took in Judge Johnson's court was a 24 week-and-a-half trial and they had to have it right 25 away. And I was more working on those, giving them CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 time to get started on their stuff. 2 Q. As best you can, give us a time reference 3 where we are when the scopists are beginning their 4 work. About where are we there? 5 A. About the 1st of March of '97, roughly. 6 Q. All right. And how long does the 7 preparation of the court reporter's record take 8 them? 9 A. Several months. 10 Q. Roughly how many months? 11 A. Roughly 10 months. 12 Q. All right. When is the first time there 13 was some question about a missing two exhibits out 14 of all those admitted? 15 A. I would guess October 1st -- probably the 16 middle of October. I'm just guessing on that. I 17 think that's about right. 18 Q. That's October of? 19 A. Of '97. 20 Q. April? 21 A. No. 22 Q. Be '98? 23 A. '98. Yes. 24 Q. And when you -- when someone discovered 25 that two exhibits were missing and brought it to CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 your attention, where did you think those exhibits 2 were? 3 A. I thought -- I didn't know for sure. I 4 thought they were supposed to be in the record. But 5 since they weren't in the record, I thought, well, 6 Lindsey and I talked about it and he said, "The 7 last" -- "does this ring a bell with you?" He said, 8 "The last thing it shows on the record was that the 9 Court let the defense attorneys take this Brantley 10 file to make a Xerox copy of it? Do you remember 11 them ever bringing it back?" And I said, "I don't 12 remember them bringing it back. I can't remember 13 one way or the other." 14 Q. Is that what you honestly thought at the 15 time? 16 A. I truly thought that at the time. 17 Q. All right. And what about the laser disk? 18 A. Now, the laser disk, in the very 19 beginning, I told Linda Uecker, who is the District 20 Clerk in Kerr County -- when we checked all the 21 exhibits, everything looked like it was there. And 22 as far as I knew. There's a box -- this laser disk 23 is like this big around (indicating), like an old 33 24 and a third record. And it's in a little cardboard 25 box like this deep (indicating). And the box was CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 there. And so on that -- when we were putting it in 2 the holding place there, all the physical evidence, 3 we opened -- happened to open the box and there was 4 no disk. And so the -- I went to the courtroom and 5 all the equipment was gone. I went to the DA's 6 place where they had their quarters and all their 7 stuff was gone. They had already moved everything 8 out. 9 And Linda said -- several -- several times 10 throughout the trial, I had stayed late with the 11 investigator, Mr. Harrell and Mr. Preston Douglas, 12 who is one of the defense attorneys, so they could 13 listen to that laser disk over and over. And I -- 14 and Linda said, "I'll bet Preston Douglas or 15 Lloyd Harrell may have it." I said, "Well, maybe 16 so." And she -- so we started calling them and we 17 couldn't find it. And so we couldn't find that 18 disk. And I told -- right away, she said, "Well, 19 I'll call them. And if they have it, I'll have them 20 bring it over." 21 And when I got back to Dallas, I called 22 Anita Kinney, who was the investigator. And all 23 the -- all the Assistant D.A.'s that had tried the 24 case were on vacation. And all the defense 25 attorneys were on vacation. And I called Anita and CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 I said, "Find out" -- I said, "Do you all have the 2 equipment" -- I thought it was the DA's equipment -- 3 "that they used to play this disk?" Because maybe 4 the jury played it during their deliberations and we 5 didn't know, because it had been there before they 6 started the deliberations and I -- I guess they took 7 it out of the box and put it in there and we didn't 8 know that. And she said, "Well, let me find out. 9 think they rented it somewhere." 10 So she called me back and told me that 11 there -- here is the number of the place where they 12 got the machine. And I called that business, 13 whatever the name of it. I didn't know, but it 14 was -- called that number and talked to a lady who 15 answered the phone and told her that I was the 16 reporter and that the DA's office had returned some 17 of -- asked had they returned the equipment. And 18 she said, "Yes." I said, "Would you check and see 19 if there is a laser disk in that equipment?" "Well, 20 okay. I am sure there is not, but I'll go check." 21 I said, "Just check anyway." She goes and checks 22 and there's no disk in there. She says, "No, 23 there's no disk in there." 24 So I said, "Well, Anita, will you please 25 let the DAs know and see what they want to do about CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 it. Can they get a copy of it?" She said, "Okay. 2 I'll get back with you." And nothing ever -- 3 nothing else ever happened. 4 Q. But as you later find out that Mr. Wicker, 5 who is the owner of the business, had pulled the 6 laser tape out and was keeping it himself? 7 A. Well, I've just heard that just in the 8 last few days. 9 Q. All right. Why did you not -- if two 10 exhibits are missing, why wouldn't you look where 11 they're supposed to be in the first place? That is, 12 in the District Clerk's evidence room? 13 A. I never -- Linda Uecker brought all that 14 evidence herself. She and her husband were coming 15 to Dallas. They brought all that physical 16 evidence. I never got a list of what was checked in 17 down there. I never observed it. I didn't know 18 what was down there in the District Clerk's office. 19 So I didn't expect it to be there. I thought I had 20 all the paper exhibits and everything, which should 21 have included Brantley's file, with me. 22 Q. All right. And moving forward until 23 there's some question about audiotapes. There's 24 eventually a hearing on October 30 before 25 Judge Francis, of '98; is that correct? CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 A. Yes, sir. 2 Q. Now, what had you told Lindsey Roberts and 3 Toby Shook, if he inquired, or Steve Cooper or 4 Steve Losch or anyone who had any official 5 connection with the trial, and they asked you about 6 the audiotapes, what did you tell them? 7 A. I told them exactly what I just said. I 8 said, I made tape -- I had tape recordings and I 9 thought I made tape recordings of the whole trial, 10 but that the only ones I knew of that worked were 11 the ones of the voir dire and the hearings, but 12 not -- I didn't think that the tapes from the trial 13 had worked. 14 Q. All right. Did you believe that that was 15 true at that time? 16 A. Absolutely. 17 Q. And when you testified on October 30 18 of '98 concerning the malfunctioning of the machine, 19 the battery problem, to Judge Francis and he ends up 20 saying, well, then there are no audiotapes, at that 21 time, you thought you were being truthful, did you 22 not? 23 A. Yes, sir, that's what I meant. No -- 24 nothing on the recording. 25 Q. All right. To go forward from that. When CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 do you find out from your daughter that that was not 2 an accurate statement? 3 A. A few -- few days after that, because at 4 that hearing, I told people -- they said, "If we 5 asked your scopist, is she going to say that?" I 6 said, "Yes, it's Susy Crowley. Call her up. Ask 7 her." 8 Q. Did you and Susy talk about or did she 9 tell you that there are actually audiotapes? 10 A. Several days after -- a few days after 11 that. I don't remember the exact day, but a few 12 days after that, after that October 30th hearing. 13 Q. Were you undergoing counseling at that 14 time? 15 A. Yes, sir, I had been in counseling since, 16 well, before July. 17 Q. And how often would you go? 18 A. Two or three times a week. 19 Q. In addition -- well, let me ask this: 20 Your husband, Steve Halsey, is a Dallas County 21 magistrate; is he not? 22 A. Yes, he is. 23 Q. Did he leave the home or did you leave the 24 home? 25 A. He left. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. And when did he leave? 2 A. When I was down here for a Board hearing. 3 July the 9th is when I came down for a Board 4 hearing. When I got home July the 10th, he had left 5 a note and said he just wasn't happy, and whatever 6 his note said, and he needed to go figure out what 7 he wanted in life. And that was July the 10th 8 of '98. 9 Q. And so that was your notice that your 10 husband was gone? 11 A. Yes, sir. 12 Q. How long had you all been married? 13 A. Well, we've been together 23 years. We've 14 been married 17 years. 15 Q. In addition to that situation and the 16 counseling, did something else happen in your 17 personal life during that period of time? 18 A. In July 19 Q. At or near that. What happened? 20 A. You mean, when I tried to commit suicide? 21 Q. And what else happened before that, 22 what -- your father? 23 A. Mv father died while I was with him. I 24 was there with him and he was in the hospital. He 25 had gotten Hepatitis C several years back and we CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 didn't know he had it. We found out about two years 2 before that he -- that he had Hepatitis C. He went 3 to a lot of doctors, they didn't have a cure for 4 it. And he started having seizures off and on which 5 put him in the hospital. And the day that he died, 6 I -- he had had a seizure and he had been in the 7 hospital for about a week. And they were going to 8 let him go, if they could get his blood count up. 9 And I was sitting there -- it was a Saturday. I was 10 sitting there talking to him by his bed. And all of 11 a sudden, he says, "Honey, hand me that basin 12 there." And I handed him the emesis basin, which is 13 the little kidney shaped thing. And he just 14 throwing up lots of blood. And his veins in his 15 esophagus all started rupturing, which is typically 16 how people with Hepatitis C die. And he just 17 started hemorrhaging. And -- and so he just threw 18 up a lot of blood there. And then he stayed in a 19 coma for about three or four days. My mom and dad 20 had their 52nd anniversary on that following Monday 21 or Tuesday and he died the next day. 22 Q. When was that? 23 A. It was during Christmas holiday. I mean. 24 During the Christmas time. December the 3rd is the 25 day he died. Their anniversary is December 2nd. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. And what year? 2 A. Oh, was that '97 or '98? I can't -- I 3 think that was '97. That was in the middle of the 4 trial. We finished with the hearing on November -- 5 with the voir dire November 19th. He went and had 6 his seizure on November 20. He died on 7 December 3rd. 8 Q. Okay. Once your daughter had told you 9 there were audiotapes did you and she go to some 10 sort of pretrial or hearing conference that 11 Judge Francis had set? 12 A. They called -- actually, his coordinator 13 called me that afternoon like about 3:30 and asked 14 me to come down there. 15 Q. Was either you or Susy subpoenaed to 16 that -- 17 A. No, sir. 18 Q. -- conference? 19 A. I didn't even know they were having a 20 conference. 21 Q. So you get a call out of the blue from 22 Judge Frances' coordinator asking you to come down? 23 A. Yes, sir. 24 Q. Or telling you to come down? 25 A. Yes, sir. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. You do -- why is Susy there with you? 2 A. Because my car, when I went -- earlier in 3 the day, when I went to get in my car, my battery 4 was dead. And so I told the coordinator, I said, 5 "Well, my battery is dead." I've got a charge -- 6 my husband had this thing that you -- and I had to 7 call his son to get directions on how to do it. You 8 plug it in and you hook it -- it's a battery 9 charger. And I had put the charger on there to make 10 it start charging, but it takes several hours to 11 charge a car battery. So he said, "Well, we'll send 12 somebody to get you." And I ·said, "Well, let me 13 call my daughter. She lives in Carrollton. And 14 I'll get her to bring me down there, if she can." 15 Q. So that's how she got there? 16 A. Yes, sir. 17 Q. All right. On that day, did you go in and 18 meet privately with Judge Francis? 19 A. Yes, sir. 20 Q. You told him there that -- that there were 21 no usable audiotape? 22 A. Yes, sir. 23 Q. Or no audiotapes. And that was not 24 truthful, was it? 25 A. That was not truthful at that point. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. Why did you do that? 2 A. I was so scared of Judge Francis. I had 3 already heard what a temper he has. I didn't want 4 to do anything that would upset this appeal. And I 5 hadn't listened to them. I didn't want to take -- 6 have them take audio recordings if -- if there was 7 something on them which Susy had, between that time, 8 told me there was. And just pick -- had this 9 happen, what's happened. Pick apart every little 10 thing. 11 Q. So then you told Lindsey Roberts that 12 there were tapes, you didn't know exactly where they 13 were or what did you tell him? 14 A. I did tell him. He said, "Where are 15 they?" I said, "I'm not sure. I have searched 16 everywhere. I've searched my garage. I've searched 17 my office. I've searched my office down at the 18 courthouse. The only place I know of and -- and I'm 19 just guessing, could they be in storage?" He said, 20 "Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Let's go check. I'm sure 21 they're there. They've got" -- I said, "Just pray 22 that they're there, Lindsey. I don't know if 23 they're there or not." He said, "They will be." I 24 said -- 25 Q. Did you fi later how the tapes got CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 removed from your home and placed in the storage 2 without your knowledge? 3 A. Yes, I did, much later. My husband had 4 put them over there. 5 Q. All right. And there's an affidavit from 6 him in the package submitted to the Board on your 7 behalf that sets that out; is there not? 8 A. Yes, sir. 9 Q. Concerning the index that the complainant 10 has asked many times about. Did you make the rule 11 that a full index had to be in each volume or is 12 that what Mr. Miller told you? 13 A. That's what Mr. Miller instructed on the 14 last appeal that I had -- last death penalty appeal 15 that I had done out of there. 16 Q. And concerning that Wilson case, did you 17 and Mr. Withrow, the attorney on the appeal for the 18 defendant. did each of you all get a letter from the 19 Court of a Criminals Appeals -- 20 A. Yes, sir. 21 Q. -- instructing you to put a full index in 22 every volume in the record? 23 A. Yes, sir, we did. 24 Q. All right. And there's an affidavit from 25 Blake Withrow under Tab 5 in your packet that sets CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that out; is there not? 2 A. Yes, sir. 3 Q. Were you trying to do what you thought was 4 the rule? 5 A. Absolutely. 6 Q. What about margins and parentheticals. 7 What -- well, I've heard something about that. 8 What's that all about? 9 A. On the margins -- I mean, I don't -- I 10 don't know. But my margins, the only -- only thing 11 I heard anybody tell me about the margins was, when 12 Mr. Callaway said, "Well, you're supposed to have 13 one tab to start your question and two tabs to start 14 the text. And yours is two tabs to start the 15 question and three tabs to start the text." 16 And then on the parentheticals, I've never 17 seen any rules. Those parentheticals are what have 18 evolved over many years. And I followed the same 19 paren -- those are almost exactly the same 20 parentheticals that Marion McNeil and Don Hardy both 21 had taught me when I subbed for them when I first 22 came to Dallas. They're different than the 23 parentheticals I used before I came to Dallas, but 24 that's what they were using. And I used those just 25 like Marion did. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. What's usually contained in the 2 parenthetical? 3 A. The -- they always started off, whereupon, 4 the following proceedings were -- occurred in the 5 presence and hearing of the defendant, being 6 represented by his or her attorney and a 7 representative of the State, and in the presence and 8 hearing of the jury or out of the presence and 9 hearing of the jury. In fact, we used to, at one 10 time, back when -- years ago, we used to put at the 11 top of every single page, in the presence and 12 hearing the jury or out of the presence and hearing 13 of the jury. That was your first line on every page 14 because of some federal rulings or something. I 15 don't know how it evolved, but that's what we used 16 to do. And we quit doing that several years ago. 17 We said, that's -- ridiculous. 18 Q. Had there been criminal defendants in the 19 past that might claim that they weren't present for 20 a hearing when they actually were? 21 A. Absolutely, there were. 22 Q. Is that what the parenthetical is designed 23 to cut off the argument by the criminal? 24 A. Yes, sir, that was our understanding from 25 what the judges instructed us to do that way. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. Of course, putting the parenthetical in 2 makes a longer record? 3 A. Well, it makes it more accurate, too. 4 Q. If the Board, in its wisdom, does not 5 revoke your certification, fashions some other 6 punishment, sanction, what are your plans? 7 A. If they do not revoke my certification, 8 then, I do have a job offer pending right now. 9 Q. Are you ever going to work ever again in a 10 felony court? 11 A. No, sir, I've been wanting to get out of 12 it because of the pressure and the long, long, long 13 hours that my job has involved. 14 Q. At the present time, you're working as a 15 cashier for the Dallas County Clerk, Earle Bullock? 16 A. Yes, sir. 17 Q. What's the status of your divorce? Is 18 that final or where are you on that? 19 A. It's pending for the final hearing October 20 3rd, I think it is. It's either September or 21 October. I'm not positive. I think it's 22 October 3rd. 23 MR. MILNER: Pass the witness. 24 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 REDIRECT EXAMINATION 2 BY MR. KNAPP: 3 Q. Your daughter, Susan Crowley, how long has 4 she acted as your scopist? 5 A. For about five years. 6 Q. But she's not certified by the Board as a 7 court reporter; is that correct? 8 A. No, sir. 9 Q. And when she -- as I understand it, she 10 presented you all of these various volumes at one 11 time. She was the one, at least on the evidentiary 12 portion and on the sentencing portion, that prepared 13 the entire record that was reported to you; is that 14 correct? 15 A. Off of my real-time, is that what you 16 mean? 17 Q. That's right. 18 A. Off of my real-time, yes. 19 Q. And you, as I understand it, with a very 20 preliminary look over this, signed it as the court 21 reporter certifying this; is that correct? 22 A. Yes, sir. 23 Q. Did Michele Reynolds scope any of the 24 guilt-incidence punishment phase of the trial? 25 A. To my knowledge, all. she did was the voir CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 dire portion. 2 Q. Let me hand you this document that's been 3 admitted as Complainant's Exhibit No. 8 and simply 4 ask you that -- you see there's some writing on 5 there that's been read into the record before? 6 A. Yes, sir. 7 Q. Exactly what does that say? 8 A. The writing? 9 Q. Yes. 10 A. "Brantley note file. Defense attorneys 11 have this in their file." 12 Q. Did you write that? 13 A. Yes, sir. 14 Q. And did you write that on any other 15 portion of the reporter's record that was sent to 16 any other party or to the Court itself to be filed? 17 A. I thought it -- I don't recall. I thought 18 it should have been on everyone, because that was my 19 understanding of the time. 20 Q. But it now turns out that's, as far as 21 we're aware, the only document that it appears 22 on -- 23 A. Apparently. 24 Q. -- the one that was sent to -- okay. 25 And isn't it true that -- that the record CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that you filed and the copies that you sent to 2 various attorneys is supposed to be exactly the same 3 in each set of the reporter's record? 4 A. Excuse me, yes. Repeat that. 5 Q. Isn't it true that you submit a reporter's 6 record to the Court of Appeals -- Court of Criminal 7 Appeals in this case and then you submit a copy of 8 that record to the various attorneys that are 9 entitled to it, that request it. And that -- those 10 copies are supposed to be exactly the same as the 11 record that you file with the Court? 12 A. Yes, sir. 13 Q. And so, at least in this one instance, 14 that was not correct? 15 A. That's correct. 16 Q. Let me ask you: On this Volume 29 of the 17 reporter's record that was -- that's dated July 7, 18 1997, on this certification that's signed by you on 19 there, did that comply with the requirements of the 20 Certification Board of a reporter's record? 21 A. My understanding, it did. It doesn't 22 state exactly verbatim what's in the Code of 23 Criminal Procedure. But the Code of Criminal 24 Procedure says, "in substantially this form." And I 25 was trying to make it more accurate, stating that it CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 was under -- edited by other people but under my 2 direction. 3 Q. All right. But you did sign that? 4 A. Yes, sir. 5 Q. And there appears? 6 A. Yes, sir. 7 Q. All right. Thank you. 8 MR. KNAPP: Pass the witness. 9 MR. MILNER: No further questions, 10 Your Honor. 11 THE COURT: Board questions? 12 MS. MILLER: From the very beginning 13 of the trial when you were knowing that it was a 14 capital murder trial and it was going to be long, 15 was Susy the only person that you planned to have do 16 the scoping of this? 17 THE WITNESS: I don't know. I can't 18 recall that, Monica. 19 MS. MILLER: No. I was wondering 20 because she's a mother, has a small child, going to 21 court reporting school. In hindsight, do you think 22 it would have been better to probably have had two 23 or three or four scopist lined up to do the work? 24 THE WITNESS: In hindsight, yes. 25 Except that at that time, she wasn't a mother with a CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 small child. Her baby is just now nine months old. 2 MS. MILLER: In court reporting 3 school? 4 THE WITNESS: Yes, she was going to 5 court reporting school four days a week. 6 MS. MILLER: Would it have been 7 possible that once -- I think both of them ended up 8 having family problems and gone a week or two. I 9 think one was gone for four weeks. Was it not. 10 possible to bring in other people? Did work stop at 11 that point? 12 THE WITNESS: Well, when they were 13 gone for that period of time, it was day-to-day. 14 Like, Susie's -- 15 MS. MILLER: You thought they would 16 be back? 17 THE WITNESS: I thought they would be 18 right back. It was -- the things that happened were 19 things like, well, if he pulls out of this, he'll be 20 okay tomorrow. And there -- their conditions of 21 their family members deteriorated rather than 22 improving. 23 MS. MILLER: This Michele Reynolds, 24 had she been working as a scopist for you before -- 25 THE WITNESS: No. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MS. MILLER: -- for this trial? 2 THE WITNESS: No. 3 MS. MILLER: And she was somebody 4 brand new? 5 THE WITNESS: Right. 6 MS. MILLER: And you said Susy was 7 going to train her some on the software? 8 THE WITNESS: Susy would have trained 9 her on the software. 10 MS. MILLER: She would have been 11 slower than the normal person?. 12 THE WITNESS: To begin with. 13 MS. MILLER: Maybe it would have been 14 better to have a more experienced one in tackling a 15 capital murder? 16 THE WITNESS: In hindsight, yes. 17 MR. LOMBARD: Court reporter doing 18 that asked me about representations on the tapes 19 that were in the storage unit. Someone said that 20 there were notations on the tape delineating -- 21 showing that -- delineating the tapes on the trial. 22 Were those written by you? 23 THE WITNESS: No, those were not 24 written by me. 25 MR. LOMBARD: Whose handwriting was CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that? 2 THE WITNESS: The page numbers? 3 MR. LOMBARD: The page numbers on the 4 tapes. 5 THE WITNESS: Right. Typically, what 6 Susy does when she listens to the tapes, she writes 7 down the page numbers there, so then if I have a 8 question, I can find it on those tapes. I didn't 9 know it was on there until that night that we pulled 10 them out of the storage. I just hadn't even looked 11 at them. 12 MS. MILLER: Okay. And just, again, 13 on the parentheticals. I have a couple of pages -- 14 something that I pulled off of a web page. I mean, 15 is it your normal practice to have -- like on this 16 very first page, this is the testimony of Jimmy Ray 17 Patterson. And like on this very first page, there 18 are five, six, seven blank lines. Is that a 19 normal -- your normal? 20 THE WITNESS: Seven blank lines? 21 MS. MILLER: Seven blank -- you know, 22 there's one before the "whereupon," which is on the 23 line. And then there is a blank line. And then 24 there's a blank line after the witness' name. And 25 then before the direct examination there are two CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 blank lines and after the direct examination there 2 is another blank line. 3 THE WITNESS: Can I see that? From 4 here it looks like something on there, but it's 5 something drawn -- 6 MR. GORANSON: Can I make an 7 inquiry? You said that came off the Internet? 8 MS. MILLER: From the Internet above 9 Darley Routier.org. That's the first transcript on 10 there. 11 THE WITNESS: Okay. I'm going to try 12 to explain this for people who are not reporters. 13 You have brief forms that you hit. For instance, 14 "wit wit" and that is to set up a witness. Each 15 one of those brief forms, the way mine are set up 16 say at the beginning of it, new line, paragraph and 17 at the end of it new line and paragraph. When those 18 overlap each other, it creates a blank line. And I 19 instructed my scopists to delete those lines when 20 they were editing. It wasn't -- I didn't realize 21 they weren't getting them until I just looked at it 22 one day to see how they were coming along. I said, 23 "You all delete all those blank lines in there." 24 That's what my instructions were. 25 MS. MILLER: And on the following CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 page there, we talked about the parentheticals and 2 all the things that you thought and that are 3 commonly in the parentheticals. 4 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. 5 MS. MILLER: Which that one has. And 6 it's, I don't know, eight or 10 lines, whatever. Is 7 there any reason why, even if you have to have all 8 that information in, that the lines can't be full? 9 I mean -- and on the right margin there are big 10 spaces where you could have had all the information 11 in that parenthetical with about three or four less 12 lines, it looks like to me. 13 THE WITNESS: When I changed 14 software, these parentheticals -- when I put them -- 15 when I was writing it real-time, these 16 parentheticals came up different than my old 17 software. I was on Maestro. I went on 2001. And I 18 think it was the spacing of the -- of the letters, 19 you know. You know what I'm talking about, 10, 12, 20 whatever that is? And I think it was smaller and it 21 just made more gaps there, which by then, once you 22 hit it on your real-time and it's in there, then 23 you've got to manually change every single line. 24 MS. MILLER: Right. Some of those 25 pages where there are longer parentheticals, there's CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 not a whole lot of text. In other words, there's 2 not a whole lot of words on some of those pages 3 where those long parentheticals are. 4 THE WITNESS: Okay. 5 MS. MILLER: That's all. 6 THE COURT: Ms. Haygood. 7 MS. HAYGOOD: Could you give us a 8 little detail about your job offer that you have? 9 THE WITNESS: It would be in a -- it 10 would be in a misdemeanor court. This may turn into 11 a probate court is what the judge is expecting. 12 He's expecting to be appointed, but he's already in 13 a misdemeanor court. 14 MS. HAYGOOD: In what, as official 15 court reporter? 16 THE WITNESS: Yes, official court 17 reporter. There wouldn't be hardly any records in 18 there. It would be a much less stressful, easier 19 job. 20 MS. HAYGOOD: Is it civil or 21 criminal? 22 THE WITNESS: It would be civil -- 23 well, right now, it's misdemeanor. If he gets 24 appointed, which he thinks he will, then that 25 probate -- then that would be civil. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MS. HAYGOOD: Ms. Halsey, were you 2 asked by any attorneys to print out any portions of s roceeding, like 4 for the next day's -- 5 THE WITNESS: I'm sure I was. 6 MS. HAYGOOD: -- review? 7 THE WITNESS: I'm sure I was. 8 MS. HAYGOOD: You don't really recall 9 right now if any of that got produced during the 10 trial? 11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I think it did. 12 Yes. 13 MS. HAYGOOD: So the attorneys 14 probably have possession of some written 15 transcripts -- 16 THE WITNESS: I'm sure they would. 17 MS. HAYGOOD: -- that occurred, 18 right, during the trial? 19 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. 20 MS. HAYGOOD: Would have reviewed it 21 overnight for preparation the next day perhaps? 22 THE WITNESS: Exactly, the next day, 23 24 MS. HAYGOOD: Anybody complain? 25 THE WITNESS: Nobody ever complained CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 about anything. They never brought anything to my 2 attention that was wrong. Of course, I edited it, 3 you know. You can edit right there. And every day 4 I was trying to edit and put words in my dictionary 5 to make it come up. 6 MS. HAYGOOD: So it would make sense 7 during real-time, I would imagine? 8 THE WITNESS: Yes. 9 MS. HAYGOOD: Okay. Thank you. 10 THE COURT: Are you through? Jim, 11 did you have a follow-up. 12 MS. HAYGOOD: No, sir, I'm through. 13 THE COURT: Mr. Lombard. I'm sorry. 14 MR. LOMBARD: In taking a trial, if 15 I'm understanding all this correctly, there are a 16 number of different ways that the trial transcript 17 is recorded. I've heard you all talk about notes. 18 And I am assuming that notes are these things that 19 are these little pieces of paper, kind of narrow 20 wide that every once in awhile people will say read 21 back and the court reporter will look at and read 22 back, right? 23 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 24 MR. LOMBARD: And then you've talked 25 about disks. And I'm assuming that that is a CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1. computer disk that it's being kept in something 2 that, to me, who's not a court reporter, I would be 3 more familiar with like WordPerfect that is kept in 4 a text format? 5 THE WITNESS: Right. This is a disk 6 (indicating). 7 MR. LOMBARD: Right. And stored on 8 that disk is a data in word file or in files like 9 'WordPerfect or is it data as in coded information 10 that would have to be read by a specific machine? 11 THE WITNESS: I don't know how to 12 answer that. 13 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. Let me rephrase 14 it slightly. 15 THE WITNESS: Okay. 16 MR. LOMBARD: If you put the disk 17 into your machine and you pull it up, can you 18 display printed text on your screen? 19 THE WITNESS: Yes, it does that -- 20 MR. LOMBARD: And then you could 21 print that same printed text? 22 THE WITNESS: Yes. 23 MR. LOMBARD: And it would be real 24 live, honest to God words and phrases as opposed to 25 the shorthand? CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1. THE WITNESS: Looks just like this 2 (indicating). 3 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. 4 THE WITNESS: As you're writing it, 5 if she had a screen here, you would be able to see 6 it just like this as she's writing it real-time. 7 MR. LOMBARD: Now, that's the other 8 thing I was going to ask you about. You talked 9 about real-time recording. Now, is the real-time 10 recording what is stored on this disk or what is -- 11 no. 12 THE WITNESS: No, sir. The real-time 13 means the actual, right then, translation as this 14 court reporter is writing -- 15 MR. LOMBARD: Yes, ma'am. 16 THE WITNESS: -- it -- there is a -- 17 if she had a screen right here, if she were writing 18 real-time, it would come up on a screen here and it 19 would look just like this so that you and everybody 20 here could read it, depending on how many terminals 21. you have. 22 MR. LOMBARD: Now, is that 23 information saved to any type of a medium? 24 THE WITNESS: Yes, it's on a disk 25 which is -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MR. LOMBARD: Another disk or the 2 same disk? We've talked about -- 3 THE WITNESS: A disk. The disk is 4 usually -- I mean, in my machine, it's in my 5 machine. No, no. I take that back. I take -- I 6 put my -- it doesn't save it as I'm writing it. 7 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. 8 THE WITNESS: In that equipment. The 9 one I had before, it saved it as I was writing it. 10 This one, it saves it into the hard drive of the 11. actual writing machine, because it has the computer 12 built into it. Then to put it on a disk, I simply 13 insert the disk in the side, it copies whatever job 14 I tell it to copy. And then you can take that disk, 15 put it in another computer that has that matching 16 software -- 17 MR. LOMBARD: Uh-huh. 18 THE WITNESS: -- with that 19 matching -- with the software key that allows access 20 to that, then you can pull it up and read it. 21 MR. LOMBARD: So I'm hearing you say, 22 if I'm interpreting this correctly, that there are 23 at least four different mediums and -- I'm sorry, 24 and then audio would then be a thing. So we have, 25 basically, at least four, or possibly as many as CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1. five, different mediums that it's stored on? 2 THE WITNESS: Right, right. 3 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. When Mr. Miller 4 sent you your transcript back and said that it was, 5 whatever phrase he used, not acceptable, could not 6 be accepted by the Court, however, did he send it 7 back with a letter that said this? 8 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. 9 MR. LOMBARD: Do you have a copy of 10 the letter? 11 THE WITNESS: Yes. Where is that -- 12 oh, it's in here. It was a form. I hope I can find 13 it. Here. 14 MR. LOMBARD: Is that part of the 15 information we've already been provided, sir, or is 16 that something that's going to be used? 17 MR. GORANSON: These are copies of 18 basically court orders that are already an exhibit 19 someplace else. 20 THE WITNESS: This is what he sent 21 back. It's stamped there with Mr. Bennett's stamp 22 on it. And he included this. This was when I sent 23 it to them on February the 23rd? 24 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. I have seen 25 that, then. That is the order. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1. THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. And he said, 2 "It does not contain alphabetical, chronological 3 list of -- list of witnesses or prospective jurors, 4 nor does it have an index of the exhibits." And 5 then -- yeah. 6 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. When you're 7 working a trial, is it -- is it customary that you 8 ever check your audiotapes at the end of the day or 9 at any time along the way or do you just assume that 10 they're all working and store them in nice little 11 cassettes and -- 12 THE WITNESS: I just assume they're 13 working. The only time I listen to them is, you 14 know, is if I -- when I'm back. -- usually I just 15 give them to my scopists. I never depend on the 16 audiotapes. I mean, I've heard too many stories of 17 people depending on audiotapes and then something be 16 18 wrong with the audiotapes. 19 MR. LOMBARD: Have you had a chance 20 to look at the redlined version of -- 21 THE WITNESS: No, sir. 22 MR. LOMBARD: You have not. You had 23 not seen that until today at all? 24 THE WITNESS: No, sir. 25 MR. LOMBARD: During -- I don't CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 remember if it was Ms. Simmons' or Ms. Miller's 2 testimony when we were talking about spelling 3 errors. I believe it was during Ms. Simmons' 4 errors -- or her testimony about spelling errors and 5 medical terminology. Do you have any explanation 6 for why these errors would appear? 7 THE WITNESS: Yes, either when the 8 scopists went over it, they didn't -- they didn't -- 9 they thought they were correcting it the way it 10 should have been corrected. And since I didn't 11 think there were any tapes, I didn't -- I never had 12 a chance to listen to any tapes, which I would have 13 been able to catch those. If I had had enough time 14 to edit that like I wanted to -- and I know it 15 sounds like I should have had enough time. But once 16 they finished with it, if I had had enough time to 17 edit it properly, to my satisfaction, then I would 18 have been able to catch most or if not all of those 19 errors. 20 MR. LOMBARD: I only have one last 21 question: Did you ever intentionally set out to 22 defraud Dallas County of any money for these 23 transcripts? 24 THE WITNESS: Absolutely not. No, 25 sir. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MR. LOMBARD: You charged what you 2 honestly thought -- 3 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. 4 MR. LOMBARD: -- you were supposed to 5 be charging? 6 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 7 MR. LOMBARD: Thank you. 8 THE COURT: Anymore questions? 9 Ms. Coburn. 10 MS. COBURN: Ms. Halsey, on this 11 screen for real-time. You said there was a screen 12 that the attorneys could look at? 13 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. 14 MS. COBURN: Was there also a screen 15 for the judge? 16 THE WITNESS: No, ma'am. 17 MS. COBURN: Or just the one 18 external? 19 THE WITNESS: In that courtroom, the 20 bench is only this wide. And he didn't want one up 21 there. 22 MS. COBURN: And second, did the 23 rules, as you understood them for the index, did 24 they change or they had changed and you didn't 25 understand that they had changed? Which -- did they CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 change while this was going on? 2 THE WITNESS: Yes. Actually, not 3 while it was going on. We started the trial -- I 4 mean, the hearings started in July of '96. When I 5 started setting up everything, knowing they were 6 going to be seeking death. I looked at what I 7 thought the rules were in 96, which is in this Code 8 of Criminal Procedure. And that's what I thought I 9 was following -- and that's what I followed. 10 When you set up your format, you just 11 automatically include everything from then on to the 12 end. I mean, I guess you could change it if -- you 13 know, in the middle of it, but I don't know. It's 14 just automatically included in all the way through. 15 MS. COBURN: But you were going by 16 those published rules. 17 THE WITNESS: Beg your pardon? 18 MS. COBURN: You were -- 19 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was going by 20 what's published here in the Code of Criminal 21 Procedure, Appellate's Rules. 22 MS. COBURN: And my last question 23 is: What was your purpose in calling Ms. Miller and 24 Mr. Callaway to go to Austin with you? 25 THE WITNESS: Thank you for asking me CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 that question. When Mr. Miller returned the 2 statement of facts after the -- after February 22nd 3 when I sent it down there, which was my next date, 4 he returned it with that thing that said in every 5 box, "Does not contain alphabetical, chronological 6 list of witnesses" and whatever, and jurors. And I 7 sent a letter back -- I'm not sure where it is. But 8 I sent a letter back. And I mailed it back to him 9 and I -- after reviewing it. First of all, it came 10 to the wrong place. And I reviewed it. After it 11 finally got to my court, I reviewed it. And it 12 said -- and I wrote a letter. And I said, "Whoever 13 looked at this index did not see and I've now put 14 red tabs on the master index that is the 15 alphabetical, the chronological index of those 16 witnesses. They're there." And I even typed on 17 that sheet of paper like a -- what do you call -- 18 glossary or something, with alphabetical on page so 19 and so. They were there. I -- I do that routinely 20 with every trial, keep an alphabetical and 21 chronological list of witnesses with the trial. We 22 have for several years. It was there. 23 And then when I -- when he sent it back 24 and I -- and after they ordered me to serve time in 25 jail because it still wasn't complete. I called CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Mr. Miller and I said, "Mr. Miller, tell me what you 2 want me to do to this record to make the record 3 complete so that you will accept it." And he said, 4 "Remove those pages that I've sent back with paper 5 clips on them." And wherever that thing is, there's 6 a handwritten -- is it in this? There is a 7 handwritten sheet of paper by Mr. Miller. It's not 8 in there. It's going to be in that binder right 9 there (indicating). It's that yellow. And it said, 10 "Remove these pages that have paper clips." Well, 11 I went to those pages and it was the alphabetical, 12 the chronological list of exhibits -- I mean, of 13 witnesses and of jurors. 14 And I called Jerry Callaway and I said, 15 "If I take this out of there, then I'm going to be 16 out of compliance with this first order that said it 17 wasn't there to begin with. And I don't understand 18 why they're doing this." And so we went down 19 there. I took those pages out and they are still 20 there in that binder with the same paper clips on 21 there that Mr. Miller put on them. And it's the 22 alphabetical and the chronological list of witnesses 23 and I think the -- the chronological list of 24 volumes. And I said, "I want you to go down there 25 to witness this." And he said, "Well, okay. Will CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 you call Judy, too, because she has dealt with 2 Mr. Miller and she's going to be down there in New 3 Braunfels, I think, for some other hearing." 4 And so he asked me to call her. I really 5 didn't know her that well. But -- but I called her 6 because he asked me to. And he drove down. And I 7 think he was playing golf or something that weekend 8 anyway. He drove down. She drove down. They met 9 me there. And that's why I called them, because I 10 didn't -- I was totally frustrated. First he says 11 it's not there, then he says it's there. Then he 12 says, take it out. 13 THE COURT: Other questions from the 14 Board? 15 MR. ALVAREZ: Ms. Halsey, at any time 16 that Mr. Callaway or Ms. Miller were there with you, 17 did they ever offer any advice to you on the record? 18 THE WITNESS: No, sir. 19 MR. ALVAREZ: Or - 20 THE WITNESS: We asked Mr. Miller, 21 "Is this record okay?" And he said, "Then take out 22 these pages right here." And he counted off four or 23 five pages, three or four pages and we pulled them 24 out. They're still torn. And so he said, "Yeah, 25 just take those out of every volume." I'd have to CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 look through that blue folder to see what those are, 2 but it was another list of either witnesses or 3 something. And we pulled them out. And they 4 assisted me in pulling those out of the volumes. 5 And I said, "Now is it okay?" "Yeah, now it's 6 fine." 7 And then he -- and that was when I got 8 upset. I was so frustrated with this whole 9 situation. My life had just been a living hell for 10 a few months there. And I couldn't seem to make 11 this man happy. Everything the paper said wasn't 12 complete. And the whole thing was exhibit, 13 alphabetical. This is what he said take out. The 14 al -- and it says, "Alphabetical list of 15 witnesses." And the same thing for chronological. 16 I don't know what he wants. I can't -- and it's not 17 set out in any rules in this (indicating). 18 THE COURT: I'm sorry, go ahead. 19 MR. ALVAREZ: If knowing the 20 responsibility that's placed on an official court 21 reporter, on you, to prepare a record, and 22 obviously, our job is to tell a story verbatim of 23 what goes on in trial so that the appellate judges 24 can review those records and decide whether justice 25 was done or not, do you believe if we were not here CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 today and that record that you filed was accepted as 2 it was and nobody reviewed it, do you think 3 Darlene Routier, or if you were in her shoes, would 4 you be happy with that record? 5 THE WITNESS: If I were in her shoes, 6 would I be happy with the record? I don't think I 7 would happy with the trial. I mean, with the -- 8 nothing. I mean, it's not -- 9 MR. ALVAREZ: My question -- 10 THE WITNESS: -- my impression of 11 what Darley Routier thinks. I don't know what -- 12 MR. ALVAREZ: Maybe it didn't make 13 sense. If you were sitting in her shoes and you 14 knew that that record that you filed was filed as it 15 was there before everybody looked at it, would you 16 have felt that you would have gotten a fair review 17 of that case, based on the record that you filed and 18 no one had looked at it, knowing that you were going 19 to either spend the rest of your life in prison or 20 possibly be executed? 21 THE WITNESS: I don't know if I can 22 answer that question. I don't. -- I felt at the time 23 I filed the record I knew there were going to be 24 mistakes in it because I didn't have time to proof 25 it like I would any other record. And I wouldn't CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 have turned it in that soon if they had granted me 2 some more time. It's a long record. Just for the 3 four weeks, it took Ms. Simmons four months just to 4 read it, let alone to try to produce it, copy it, 5 bind it, all that extra time that goes in it. 6 MR. ALVAREZ: Thank you. 7 MS. MILLER: Is there no reason why 8 you couldn't have an independent, just a 9 proofreader? I mean, as all the volumes were scoming 10 out, why couldn't they have been passed through you 11 quickly and then -- you know, and then gone to a 12 proofreader that maybe wasn't there, but that would 13 catch typos and things? 14 THE WITNESS: Well, I tried to get 15 another proofreader. Before I went to Kerrville, I 16 had a girl who was an English major and she was my 17 proofreader. When I went to Kerrville, she moved up 18 to North Texas -- up to Denton and attended school 19 up there. And I lost that proofreader. And I 20 just -- I didn't -- I would have liked to have had 21 one, yes. But I just didn't. I never did -- never 22 could find another one who would come and proofread 23 for me. I should have. Looking back on it, I wish 24 I had. 25 THE COURT: Any. more questions? Let CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 me ask one final question: I don't have a vote on 2 this Board unless there's a tie, but I just have one 3 issue that troubles me and I want to clarify it. 4 Have you ever worked for Judge Francis? 5 THE WITNESS: No, sir. 6 THE COURT: Okay. So you were not 7 employed by Judge Francis when this conference 8 occurred on November the 12th? 9 THE WITNESS: That's correct. 10 THE COURT: All right. Now, you've 11 referenced his temper? 12 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 13 THE COURT: You've referenced 14 concerns about the case being reversed? 15 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 16 THE COURT: And the story, the way I 17 have heard it, has gone from no audiotapes_to no 18 audible audiotapes and then at some point you found 19 out from your daughter, giving you the benefit of 20 the doubt, that there were audible audiotapes. When 21 was that? 22 THE WITNESS: It was sometime after 23 the October the 30th hearing and before the 24 November 12th. 25 THE COURT: Okay. So you were well CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 aware of that prior to November? 2 THE WITNESS: I knew when I talked to 3 him in that office that_night,_but I was terrified 4 of him and I was in a very bad emotional place in my 5 life at that time. I was just scared of him. 6 THE COURT: Did prosecution also 7 enter into that? 8 THE WITNESS: Yes, because I was 9 afraid he would think that I had lied to him. 10 THE COURT: You did. 11 THE WITNESS: I didn't lie to him on 12 October 30th. 13 THE COURT: Okay. But ultimately, it 14 took use immunity for you to come forward and talk 15 about the availability of these audiotapes? 16 THE WITNESS: Actually, I don't 17 remember him saying anything about use immunity. 18 The way I remembered that conversation was, I said 19 "Well, what if there are tapes?" And he said, 20 "That's great. That's what we want to know." And 21 I said. "Well, I found out now that there are 22 tapes." And he said, "Well, the defense attorneys 23 are jumping up and down now wanting to file 24 perjury. But don't worry, we've already talked to 25 Norm Kinney. We are the District Attorney's CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Office. Nothing is going to happen to you. And we 2 are in charge of all -- of everything that goes 3 before the grand And we' r ave 4 the tapes." Now, that's the way I recall that 5 conversation with Mr. Roberts. 6 THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. 7 Anybody else from the Board and then I'll 8 let you follow-up. 9 Mr. Alvarez. 10 MR. ALVAREZ: Ms. Halsey, you just 11 said, in your answer to Judge Harle, that you did 12 not lie to the judge on the 30th of October, but yet 13 on the 12th of November, when he took you back to 14 chambers, you still would not admit that there were 15 tapes that existed. So you did lie to him at that 16 time. And it wasn't until after that -- 17 THE WITNESS: On the 12th? 18 MR. ALVAREZ: Yes, ma'am. 19 THE WITNESS: That night, on the 20 12th, I did. 21 MR. ALVAREZ: Okay. Thank you. 22 THE WITNESS: But not on the 30th. 23 THE COURT: Mr. Lombard. 24 MR. LOMBARD: I'm not sure if this is 25 proper to do or not, but I would like to ask CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-;4072 1 Mr. Roberts a short question, if you wouldn't mind. 2 THE COURT: Well, he's subject to 3 recall, so go ahead. 4 MR. LOMBARD: You have heard 5 Ms. Halsey's version of the conversation between you 6 and she. Do you agree or disagree with it? 7 MR. ROBERTS: I disa ree? 8 MR. LOMBARD: In what respect? 9 MR. ROBERTS: Well, it was a 10 conversation that was held between myself and 11 Toby y ook. And I made some statements, Toby Shook 12 made some statements. And what we conveyed to her 13 was that -- there was no mention about defense 14 attorneys wanting to file perjury or any -- I mean, 15 there was nothing about that, because, at least at 16 that point, no one knew there was perjury until she 17 had mentioned the statement. But what I had said 18 was -- and I believe Toby Shook may have -- he may 19 have said it first and then I probably -- I followed 20 up because he's more senior to me in the obyffice. 21 And she said, "Well, what if there are tapes?" And 22 he said, "Don't worry about it. We're not going to 23 take you to the grand jury for that statement at 24 that hearing. We want" -- and then that's when I 25 chimed in and I'm saying, "All we want are the CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 tapes. See, at this point if we o forward without audiotapes, this case is going to be reversed. 2 audiotapes, this case is going to be reversed. 3 There's no question" 4 MR. LOMBARD: So at the time that she 5 admitted that there were tapes, she was not saying 6 to you, if there are tapes, can I get immunity? You 7 were saying to her, if I understand -- 8 MR. ROBERTS: I don't think the -- 9 the word immunity wasn't used in -- 10 MR. LOMBARD: Am I going to be 11 prosecuted am I going to be -- 12 THE REPORTER: Excuse me, I'm sorry. 13 You'll have to speak one at a time. 14 MR. LOMBARD: I'm sorry. 15 MR. ROBERTS: It's kind of, well, if 16 there are, what now, or what -- what happens now? 17 And of course -- I mean, being a prosecutor and Toby 18 obviously being a prosecutor, I mean, I guess that 19 does convey to us a concern or at least we're 20 talking about a concern of a potential prosecution. 21 And we were thinking about those statements that she 22 had made. At least just the one under oath, not the 23 many others that she had said beforehand. And I 24 that's when, I think, Toby had said, "Don't worry 25 about it." And he did mention grand jury in some CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 fashion. He said, "We won't go to the grand jury." 2 And that's when I chimed in and said, "Really, all 3 we want are those tapes. If we're ever going to 4 save this thing, we've got to have those tapes." 5 MR. LOMBARD: Okay. Thank you. 6 THE COURT: Any other Board 7 questions, follow-up by the lawyers? Anything 8 else? 9 Mr. Cohen. 10 MR. COHEN: Ms. Halsey, you had told 11 several persons that you didn't think there were 12 audiotapes because you didn't put batteries into a 13 microphone. 14 THE WITNESS: Right. 15 MR. COHEN: Is that right? And yet 16 I've heard today -- 17 THE WITNESS: Well, not audiotapes, 18 but nothing on there because that's what I thought. 19 Nothing on that tape because there was not a battery 20 in that microphone. 21 MR. COHEN: But we've heard today 22 that wasn't the case right? 23 THE WITNESS: Well, I found out 24 subsequently later that -- I didn't put a battery in 25 there. I mean, but I found out later that -- that CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 the tapes were audible. 2 MR. COHEN: Every portion of that 3 trial was recorded by audiotapes. We've heard that 4 today. 5 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's what I'm 6 saying. 7 MR. COHEN: And yet, you told 8 Mr. Cooper that you went back and listened to tapes 9 and all you could hear was static? 10 THE WITNESS: That's true. 11 MR. COHEN: That's not true. 12 THE WITNESS: That is true. 13 MR. COHEN: We've heard from the 14 expert that reviewed the recordings that there was 15 no static on any of those tapes. 16 THE WITNESS: That's what I heard 17 when I used the transcriber that was on my desk 18 there in Judge Johnson's court. That's what I 19 heard. That tran -- I had not worked in 20 Judge Johnson's court before then and didn't go to 21 work there -- I mean, I was on her payroll 22 January 1st of '98 -- am I right? '97, but the 23 transcriber that was on that desk there, later I 24 found out, was defective. 25 MS. HAYGOOD: I'm sorry, I didn't CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 hear that. You later found out it was defective? 2 THE WITNESS: Yes. 3 THE COURT: There's an affidavit in 4 the paperwork that the defense has -- or the 5 respondent has filed. I read it earlier during the 6 break. But it concerns the transcriber -- 7 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 8 THE COURT: -- a little bit? 9 MR. COHEN: So after you used that 10 transcriber, instead of telling people the 11 transcriber wasn't working, you told people you 12 didn't put batteries into a microphone. Where did 13 you get that excuse from? 14 THE WITNESS: Okay. When I came back 15 on the -- from Kerrville, I had gone -- between the 16 time of the voir dire, taking the voir dire, I had 17 used the county equipment. And I used their 18 microphones and their everything there. When I 19 turned that back into Criminal. District Court No. 3 20 and went to -- went to get the surplus, I used -- I 21 went and bought a PZM mic. I had never used one 22 before, because I've always had equipment provided 23 by the county. I bought it at Radio Shack. I -- 24 that was right after I came back from my dad's 25 funeral. Bought that, went down to Kerrville. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 After the trial was over, I came back and 2 put the PZM mic out in the courtroom in the 363rd. 3 And at that day, Cherie Williams was working for me 4 as a substitute until I could get everything settled 5 and go start working for Judge Johnson. And when I 6 went in the courtroom, she had the microphone taken 7 apart. And I said, "What are you doing?" And she 8 said, "I'm putting a battery in here." I said, 9 "Well, why would you put a bat" -- I never heard of 10 putting a battery in a microphone. I've never done 11 it before. Never used one of those before that 12 trial. And she -- and I said, "It will work without 13 it, won't it?" And she said, "Well, mine won't." 14 And so that's when I felt this panic feeling, like, 15 oh, my gosh, I've taped this and there's nothing on 16 it. 17 I took those two tapes, went back to my -- 18 there was a box of tapes there. I just picked up a 19 couple of them, put them in the transcriber. And 20 all I could hear was static, which made me think 21 there was nothing on the tapes, then, because I 22 didn't ever put a battery in the microphone to begin 23 with. 24 MR. COHEN: You know, the start of 25 all this -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry, I can't 2 hear. 3 MR. COHEN: I'm sorry. 4 THE REPORTER: Thank you. 5 MR. COHEN: What started all this the 6 portion of the defendant's read-back testimony that 7 was transcribed and viewed by the appellate 8 attorney. And he realized that what was read back 9 to the jury was different than what was in the. 10 appellate record. 11 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. 12 MR. COHEN: Is that correct? 13 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 14 MR. COHEN: That's kind of what 15 started all this; isn't that true? 16 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. 17 MR. COHEN: And that's the first time 18 you were ever questioned about the difference 19 between what people recalled being spoken at trial 20 and what was actually in the statement of facts. 21 That's kind of what started this investigation? 22 THE WITNESS: Yes. 23 MR. COHEN: And it was that that 24 caused the Appellate Board to get in touch with you 25 and say, "Why are these two things different?" CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE WITNESS: Correct. 2 MR. COHEN: Is that correct? 3 And yet you're telling us, to check your 4 work, you just went and picked out two random 5 tapes -- 6 THE WITNESS: No, no. 7 MR. COHEN: -- and not that por.tion 8 of the read-back to see if that was actually 9 recorded? 10 THE WITNESS: No, that's not what I 11 did. I went and pulled my notes. Still thinking 12 there was nothing on any of those tapes, I pulled my 13 notes. And I made Xerox copies of those notes. And 14 the notes matched the note that I sent back to the 15 jury, because I had used the -- I can't remember, I 16 think I used a typewriter in the clerk's office that 17 night or that day, whenever it was they had the jury 18 note. I typed it there. Or I -- I think this is -- 19 my best memory is I typed it there and sent that to 20 the jury off of my notes. 21 MR. COHEN: But you were never 22 questioned about the existence of audiotapes until 23 that discrepancy came into light? 24 THE WITNESS: Right. 25 MR. COHEN: That was the portion of CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 the testimony that people were wanting you to 2 explore to find out if there was a mistake or 3 something was wrong with the record? 4 THE WITNESS: Right. 5 MR. COHEN: But yet, you're telling 6 us that to investigate that, you didn't get that 7 videotape (sic), you went to two random tapes and 8 put them in a machine? 9 THE WITNESS: That's not when I did 10 that. When I put those tapes in the machine was 11 when I first came back from Kerrville. And it was 12 like February of '97 when all this discrepancy came 13 and I just assumed there was nothing on there. And 14 I never -- I never depended on them and didn't ever 15 listen to them again from then. And then in 16 October, when all this came up, I couldn't even find 17 the tapes. And I thought, I must have taped over 18 those. If Susy didn't -- you know, didn't use them, 19 I must have -- I didn't remember what I had done 20 with them. 21 MR. COHEN: Well, did you destroy the 22 tapes? 23 THE WITNESS: No, I didn't. 24 MR. COHEN: Looking at the affidavit 25 of Judge Francis, he swears under oath that -- and CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 I'll just read a portion to you here. I don't know 2 if you have seen this or not. 3 THE WITNESS: Okay. 4 MR. COHEN: Maybe the attorneys will 5 show it to you. This is on Page 46 of our booklet. 6 In the fifth full paragraph, the Judge writes, "On 7 several occasions I met personally with Ms. Halsey 8 and she insisted that no audiotapes exist. In two 9 separate hearings, while under oath Ms. Halsey 10 persisted in her story that no other tapes existed. 11 She explained to me in great detail a completely 12 fabricated story of how she edited the record by 13 memory." 14 Now, are you saying that the Judge is 15 lying when he made this statement under oath? 16 THE WITNESS: I don't understand what 17 he's talking about I didn't fabricate a story and 18 tell him I edited by memory. He -- I think where 19 he's getting that from is where he said, "Well, if 20 it says something in the record, do you use your" -- 21 "what do you use to help you distinguish a 22 difference?" And I said, "If a live reporter is 23 there, many times you just remember something being 24 said that" -- for instance, you write down, kissing 25 and later on in the trial, you realize, wait, I CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 think she said cussing instead of kissing because 2 they say it again later and it's more clear. And 3 you realize and you go back. And that's what I 4 explained to him that night. 5 MR. COHEN: And then the last thing 6 he writes in that same paragraph, as you can see is, 7 "Finally, after being told that she in regard might 8 be prosecuted" -- 9 THE WITNESS: Excuse me, I can't hear 10 what you're saying. 11 MR. COHEN: "Finally, after being 12 told that she and her daughter might be prosecuted, 13 Ms. Halsey admitted the existence of approximately 14 150 audiotapes." 15 Now, isn't that really what happened that 16 day, November 12th? 17 THE WITNESS: On November the 12th, 18 that night, I told him -- my memory of it is that 19 when I told them there were tapes, that they went -- 20 ·that Lindsey went and told the judge and the 21 attorney and then came back and told me that they 22 were wanting to prosecute me. I never heard 23 anything about prosecuting my daughter, ever. 24 MR. COHEN: Now, could -- I'd like to 25 refer to a portion of Mr. Robert's affidavit on CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Page 48, which would be in the second full paragraph 2 beginning with "November 4th, 1998." Mr. Roberts 3 says under oath in his affidavit that -- I'm just 4 going to read a portion of this. "We again asked 5 Ms. Halsey if there were any audiotapes for the 6 Routier trial because that was the only way to 7 understand the discrepancies between her 8 stenographic notes and the final transcription. 9 Ms. Halsey again specifically stated that no 10 audiotapes from the trial testimony existed." 11 That was November 4th. 12 THE WITNESS: Yes. 13 MR. COHEN: Okay. And then on 14 Page 49, in the middle of the -- or in the second 15 full paragraph -- just read a portion of this to you 16 for about the middle part of the paragraph. We also 17 told her that the District Attorney's Office would 18 not pursue perjury charges for her prior sworn 19 statement -- 20 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry. I can't 21 hear you. 22 MR. COHEN: It's these motorcycles. 23 "We also told her the District Attorney's 24 Office would not pursue perjury charges for her 25 prior sworn statement concerning the audiotapes. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Ms. Halsey then told us that there were audiotapes 2 for the trial on the merits, but she was not certain 3 of their whereabouts or the quality." 4 THE WITNESS: That's true. 5 MR. COHEN: So you told the judge 6 that they didn't exist. And you told the DA that 7 you didn't know the whereabouts of the tapes, so -- 8 THE WITNESS: I said I'm not sure of 9 the whereabouts. 10 MR. COHEN: Well, I'm just trying to 11 figure out -- 12 THE WITNESS: That's what he said. 13 MR. COHEN: -- how many different 14 stories you told these people and why these people 15 are coming forward in their affidavits under oath 16 and telling us what I think is the truth in the 17 case, that you knew these audiotapes existed and you 18 knew the whereabouts and you knew the information 19 that was on there. 20 THE WITNESS: I did not know that 21 they existed until after -- after November the 4th, 22 that -- I think it was that day, after I talked to 23 Lindsey Roberts and Sue Crowle that -- I think it 24 was that afternoon that 25 Susy. And she told me about the tapes. And then I CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 couldn't find them. And I didn't know where they 2 were. And I didn't have any idea of where they 3 were. And it wasn't until lon after all of this, 4 that I found out my husband was the one that put 5 them over in storage when he was cleaning out our 6 garage. I didn't know they were there. 7 MR. COHEN: Which one of your 8 scopists transcribed the read-back testimony from 9 the defendant? 10 THE WITNESS: I would guess that 11 would be Susy. 12 MR. COHEN: That was, again, the 13 information that started this whole investigation? 14 THE WITNESS: Yes. 15 MR. COHEN: Are you telling us you 16 never went to one of your scopists and said, Did you 17 listen to an audiotape? Why is there more 18 information in the statement of facts than there was 19 during the trial? 20 THE WITNESS: I'm telling you that 21 because I thought she had made a mistake when she 22 was scoping. 23 MR. COHEN: A mistake by adding 24 testimony? 25 THE WITNESS: I don't -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MR. COHEN: That's not a mistake. 2 THE WITNESS: I'm just saying, I just 3 thought that she had made a mistake during the -- 4 all of this happened within a two-week period there, 5 from my understanding, two or three-week period in 6 October. And -- between October and November. And 7 I did not know until -- that she had actually used 8 tapes until, I think it was the night after that 9 November 4th day that we had a meeting. 10 MR. COHEN: So you knew by 11 November 4th that the tapes existed? 12 THE WITNESS: After -- after we 13 talked -- I'm thinking it was that night. I'm not 14 positive of what night I -- what day I talked to her 15 that -- in the evening about it. 16 MR. COHEN: And that's why on 17 November 12th, when you talked to Judge -- to the 18 judge, you knew you were being dishonest with him? 19 THE WITNESS: That night, yes. I 20 didn't know what to do. And I -- and I was 21 dishonest with him that night on November the 12th. 22 MR. COHEN: And then when you were 23 questioned in open court on the 13th to have an 24 opportunity to straighten all this out, you chose to 25 take the Fifth Amendment privilege against CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 self-incrimination? 2 THE WITNESS: I wanted to explain it 3 then. And I had already talked to Mr. Milner. And 4 on that date -- no, I had not. I talked to him 5 later. On that date, I wanted to explain that whole 6 thing. In fact, that night -- I wanted to explain 7 it to Judge Francis on the 12th. And when I went 8 back in the judge's chambers, after I talked to 9 Lindsey and to Toby Shook -- Lindsey Roberts and 10 Toby Shook, I went back in there that night and he 11 said -- he just stood up and screamed at me. And he 12 said, "You lied to me." And I said, "But, Judge." 13 "Don't say another word." He screamed at me and 14 shook his finger in my face. "Don't you open your 15 mouth to me." And I looked at Lindsey because I 16 wanted them to say, "She's just found out some" -- 17 they didn't -- I don't know. I just wanted to see 18 what his reaction. And he just did his fingers on 19 his lips and like, just don't make him any madder. 20 And I didn't say another word to him. I wanted to 21 tell him that night, but he didn't want to hear 22 anything from me. 23 MR. COHEN: But if you didn't think 24 you were lying on the 30th, as you claimed -- of 25 October -- excuse me, let me finish the question. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE WITNESS: I wasn't. 2 MR. COHEN: If you claimed you didn't 3 know anything on the 30th about the existence of the 4 audio working correctly on the tapes, why did you 5 choose to take the Fifth Ame nt on the 12th if 6 you knew, in your mind, you hadn't lied, if that's 7 what the truth is? 8 MR. GORANSON: Do you mean the 13th? 9 MR. COHEN: Excuse me the 13th. 10 THE WITNESS: On the 13th, why did I 11 do that? The judge appointed me -- that day on the 12 13th, I expected to testify and explain the whole 13 thing. And Toby Shook and Lindsey Roberts came 14 downstairs where I was in my office on the 363rd and 15 they said, "We're going to have a stipulation to 16 your testimony.'" And so after every -- we thought 17 the hearing was over. Then someone came down and 18 said, "The jud e wants you to come -- 'Judge 19 Francis wants you to come up to the CDC 3." 20 And I went up there and he said, '"I'm 21 going to appoint you an attorney because the defense 22 attorney is going to ask you some questions." And 23 the defense attorney said, '"Look, I don't know 24 anything about all this. I suggest you need to call 25 a lawyer. I'm just going to stand up and ask" -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 and I think that was the day he said, just ask for 2 the Fifth until you get a chance to explain it. 3 My memory was that day, that instead of me 4 saying anything that Mr. Picket, who was appointed 5 by the Court, said, "We want a continuance." And 6 then they continued it to the next week. And 7 Mr. Milner had been in several other hearings 8 involved in some other things. And he came in that 9 day and he said, "'I don't know what all is going 10 on. I'm just going to tell you to plead the Fifth 11 until I can find out more about this, because I 12 don't know what they're going to ask you about." He 13 says, "'I don't know anything about exhibits" and 14 something else, I don't know. 15 THE WITNESS: Before you were called 16 to testify on the 13th, though, according to 17 Mr. Roberts' affidavit here, you had already told 18 the DA's office that the tapes existed and they had 19 told you that you were not going to be prosecuted 20 for perjury. 21 THE WITNESS: On what date? 22 MR. COHEN: The day that you took the 23 Fifth Amendment before you testified -- 24 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. 25 MR. COHEN: -- you were already told CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 you weren't going to be prosecuted for perjury. 2 THE WITNESS: Right. 3 MR. COHEN: Okay. But you then went 4 ahead and chose to take the Fifth Amendment 5 privilege. And what I don't understand is, if you 6 knew you didn't lie on the 30th and you were told by 7 the DA that you weren't going to be prosecuted for 8 the perjury that occurred on the 30th, you still 9 chose not to come forward on the 13th and say, "Here 10 is the darn tapes, you all leave me alone." 11 THE WITNESS: I wanted -- 12 MR. GORANSON: Excuse me. I'm going 13 to object. It seems to me that she has stated that 14 upon advice of counsel she invoked her privilege. 15 And it seems to me that any further inquiries along 16 this line would be invading her right to counsel at 17 it this time between Mr. Milner and the witness. 18 And the witness has already said she wanted to 19 answer but the lawyer said to take the Fifth. I 20 mean, it seems to me that that's a violation of the 21 6th Amendment now. 22 THE COURT: Well, I'll overrule the 23 objection. I think the record is clear that she's 24 saying that she only asserted it because her counsel 25 advised her to do so. You can inquire but not go CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 into communication between the attorney-client. 2 MR. COHEN: The facts there, Judge. 3 I won't go over that anymore. 4 This is the last question: I've heard 5 testimony that there were 18,000 corrections made to 6 this record you turned in. That's incredible. And 7 I'm not a court reporter, I don't know if that's 8 normal or not, but that's embarrassing to me as a 9 member of this Board. And if people are outraged in 10 the ublic about this record, I can understand if 11 that record looked like that, that needed 18,000 12 corrections. 13 THE WITNESS: It's embarrassing to 14 me, also. I've never done -- 15 MR. COHEN: I don't understand, did 16 you proofread this record at all before you turned 17 it in. 18 THE WITNESS: Very little. I didn't 19 want that to happen. That's why I was begging for 20 more time. 21 MR. COHEN: Is it your duty to 22 proofread those records -- 23 THE WITNESS: Yes, it is. 24 MR. COHEN: -- before you turn them 25 in? CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE WITNESS: But when they're 2 threatening -- 3 THE REPORTER: Excuse me, I'm sorry. 4 MR. COHEN: Would you agree that 5 that's a negligent violation of your duty as a 6 Certified Court Reporter, not reviewing that record 7 that contained 18,000 errors? 8 THE WITNESS: It was either that or 9 go to jail. They're threatening me with jail if I 10 didn't turn it in. 11 MR. COHEN: Well, the last time you 12 got a you got to sit in an office 13 for eight hours, you didn't go to jail. 14 THE WITNESS: That was it. But I 15 didn't know that at the time. 16 MR. COHEN: Your career at that time 17 was to be a court reporter. And you understand by 18 being negligent in your duties, you may and could 19 very well lose your license? 20 THE WITNESS: Exactly. 21 MR. COHEN: And yet you didn't take 22 the time to at least sample part of the record to 23 see if there were errors in there before you turned 24 it in? 25 THE WITNESS: They gave me a contempt CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 of court order to get it turned in regardless, no 2 extensions. And I wanted to have the time, but it 3 takes a tremendous amount of time just to proof it, 4 print it, bind it, put all those exhibits together. 5 That -- and I didn't have time to do it all. 6 MR. COHEN: Why couldn't you just 7 maybe every now and then look at a few pages here 8 and there? 9 THE WITNESS: I did. 10 MR. COHEN: There's so many errors in 11 this thing you would have found errors just maybe by 12 reading 10, 15, 20 pages. But you didn't do that, 13 did you? 14 THE WITNESS: I didn't have the time 15 to read it like I wanted to read it. 16 MR. COHEN: It's your duty to read 17 those records and make sure they're accurate? 18 THE WITNESS: I've never had another 19 complaint on another record but this. This was only 20 because they were threatening to throw me in jail. 21 "You turn it in regardless." And I've done 22 thousands and thousands and thousand of records. 23 MR. COHEN: In this record, then, you 24 were negligent in carrying out your duties? 25 THE WITNESS: In this record, I was. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 MR. COHEN: Thank you. 2 THE COURT: Ms. Haygood. 3 MS. HAYGOOD: You were just speaking 4 about how it takes a long time to do certain 5 things. And one of the things you mentioned was 6 doing exhibits. Did you do the exhibit volumes? 7 THE WITNESS: Yes. 8 MS. HAYGOOD: And you didn't -- 9 THE WITNESS: I had people helping 10 me. 11 MS. HAYGOOD: Well, what about the 12 two missing exhibits? 13 THE WITNESS: Well, I wasn't aware 14 that those -- one I wasn't aware that it was in 15 evidence. It was the letters. I didn't think those 16 were admitted into evidence. There was a big stack 17 of letters. 18 MS. HAYGOOD: Well, you would be the 19 one who would know that they were admitted or not? 20 THE WITNESS: Right. I thought my 21 index showed that it was a blank space where they 22 were supposed to have been admitted into evidence. 23 I didn't think that they were. So if they're not 24 admitted into evidence, then, they wouldn't have 25 been included, you know. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE COURT: Ms. Coburn. 2 MS. COBURN: This may not be a 3 question that Ms. Halsey can answer, it may have to 4 come from Ms. Simmons. What constitutes an error? 5 Of the 18,000 errors that you found. Was that 6 18,000 wrong words or was it punctuation or was it 7 spelling or -- 8 MS. SIMMONS: No punctuation was 9 included in that. 10 MS. COBURN: So where you were -- 11 MS. SIMMONS: Misidentification of 12 speaker, misspelled words, that type of thing. 13 MS. COBURN: So you did not just 14 count where you have a red mark? 15 MS. SIMMONS: No. 16 THE COURT: Okay. Any other Board 17 questions? 18 MS. MILLER: Did you at least run a 19 spell checker on the volumes before you turned it 20 in? That's an easy way to catch some things. 21 THE WITNESS: I don't -- my 22 experience with that, I had tried to run a spell 23 check and it would lock up because the file was too 24 big. And I was having problems with the computer 25 running a spell check on the whole thing. And I CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 couldn't get that resolved. I talked to the 2 software people. And I just quit using it rather 3 than keep fooling with it. I just quit using that 4 spell check because it was locking up my -- freezing 5 the file, if you know what I mean. 6 MS. DOLPH: My name is Sarah Dolph 7 and this is for Ms. Simmons. Talk about the 18,000 8 errors, when you add a paragraph or a sentence or 9 two sentences, are you counting that was one error, 10 when you say 18,000? 11 MS. SIMMONS: Tell me again, I don't 12 understand. 13 MS. DOLPH: There are some places in 14 the record where you have added a whole sentence or 15 a whole paragraph. And when ou say there are 16 18,000 errors -- 17 MS. SIMMONS: That would just be one. 18 MS. DOLPH: That would be one. 19 Okay. Thank you. 20 THE COURT: Okay. I think that 21 concludes the Board questioning. Brief follow-up by 22 the lawyers. 23 Mr. Knapp, go ahead. 24 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 REDIRECT EXAMINATION. CONTINUED 2 BY MR. KNAPP 3 Q. Ms. Halsey, you've testified that -- at 4 some point, you listened to a couple of tapes on a 5 transcriber. Do you remember exactly when that date 6 was? 7 A. It was the first -- probably the middle -- 8 first to middle part of February of '97 when I first 9 came back from Kerrville. 10 Q. And when did you learn that that 11 transcriber was not properly functioning? 12 A. Many months after that. 13 Q. Can you give us an approximate date on 14 that? 15 A. I want to say -- I don't know, maybe -- I 16 don't know. It was many months. It was even after 17 all of these hearings and everything, because I had 18 talked to Cherie. I just never used that 19 transcriber because I don't do the work there at my 20 office. I always do it at my home. And it was 21 there for substitutes or whoever. It was just 22 provided by the Court. 23 Q. So it was after the date of the hearing -- 24 A. Yes. 25 Q. -- that you learned -- CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE if (512) 452-4072 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. -- the fact that the transcriber? 3 Where do you reside? Is your residence in 4 Plano, Texas? 5 A. Yes, it is. 6 Q. And during this period, were you spending 7 the night there every night, were you going home? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. All right. And as I understand from your 10 testimony, you discovered, on approximately 11 November 4 of 1998, that there were, in fact, 12 audible audiotapes of this entire proceeding. 13 A. Somewhere around that time. 14 Q. All right. And yet -- and you're going 15 home every evening and yet, you wait up until the 16 hearing, I believe, on November 13, 1998, to 17 basically check to see where these tapes are, 18 didn't -- 19 A. No, I had been looking for the tapes just 20 to show them. In fact, I told the reporters. They 21 said, "Well, it looks like there's tapes." I said, 22 "If I knew where the tapes were, it would be to my 23 advantage to show you. Here they are." I didn't 24 know where they were. I just assumed I must have 25 taped over them. CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Q. Well, but you knew that you had this 2 storage garage there that some of your - - not 3 necessarily tapes, but some of your possessions were 4 in that storage garage in Plano? 5 A. I've never put any of my work storage 6 stuff in that storage. No, I didn't know it was 7 over there. I didn't know it was there at all. 8 Q. Let me ask you one more question along 9 that line: In Plano basically, you had your house 10 to look in, your garage, what have you, for the 11 tapes -- 12 A. Right. 13 Q. -- and you had a storage shed or a storage 14 bin? 15 A. It's not at the house, though. 16 Q. All right. But it's in Plano? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. And so isn't that a logical place to look 19 for these tapes? 20 A. I knew I didn't put them over there. So, 21 no, it wasn't logical to me. I've never put notes 22 or tapes over there. So, no, I would have never 23 thought to look there, because I've always kept them 24 either in the District Clerk's storage area, in my 25 office at the courthouse storage area or in my CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 garage or in my office at home. That's the only 2 places I keep them. I've never put them over there. 3 Q. Is it also your testimony that the only 4 time that you lied knowingly about the existence of 5 these audio -- audiotapes was on, I believe, 6 November 13 of 1998? 7 A. November 12th. 8 Q. November 12? 9 A. Yes, sir. 10 Q. And that was the only time that you lied 11 about their existence? 12 A. That's correct. 13 MR. KNAPP: Pass the witness. 14 A. About there being something on the tapes. 15 Q. (By Mr. Knapp) About there being 16 something on the tapes. 17 A. Right. 18 MR. MILNER: I have no further 19 questions, Your Honor. 20 MR. GORANSON: I do have one 21 housekeeping. What's our next exhibit? 22 THE REPORTER: No. 12. 23 (Respondent's Exhibit No. 12 was marked 24 for identification.) 25 MR. GORANSON: The note from CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 Mr. Miller is -- we'd offer it, Your Honor. 2 THE COURT: Any objection? 3 MR. KNAPP: No objection, Your Honor. 4 THE COURT: Okay. It's admitted. 5 (Respondent's Exhibit No. 12 was admitted 6 into evidence.) 7 THE COURT: Let's take -- we need to 8 get some more tapes from the office and some 9 documents from across the street. And we're going 10 to take about a 15-minute recess. Let me ask any 11 Board member, participant, party or attorney that 12 wants to review the redline transcript to do so 13 during this 15 minutes, because I'm going to cut 14 Mr. Bennett loose with the transcript when we get 15 back. So anybody that wants to see it needs to look 16 at it now. We're in recess. 17 (Brief recess.) 18 (Excerpt concluded.) 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072 1 THE STATE OF TEXAS ) 2 3 COUNTY OF TRAVIS ) 4 I, CAROLINE CHAPMAN, Certified Shorthand 5 Reporter in and for County of Travis County, State 6 of Texas, do hereby certify that the above and 7 foregoing contains a true and correct transcription 8 of all portions of evidence and other proceedings 9 requested in writing by counsel for the parties to 10 be included in this volume of the Reporter's Record, 11 in the above-styled and numbered cause, all of which 12 occurred in open court or in chambers and were 13 reported by me. 14 I further certify that the total cost for 15 the preparation of this Reporter's Record is 16 $ ____________and was/will be paid by,____________ 17 WITNESS MY OFFICIAL HAND this the 1st day 18 of December, 1999. 19 20 21 Caroline Chapman /J.W. 22 CAROLINE CHAPMAN, Texas CSR #467 Expiration Date: 12/99 23 Certified Shorthand Reporter Travis County, Texas 24 111 W. Anderson Ln., Ste. 222 (512) 452-4072 25 CHAPMAN COURT REPORTING SERVICE (512) 452-4072