Where can I access the transcripts of Legal trials (both criminal and Civil)
Is this information available on the internet?. If not where can this
information be obtained?

 My question would specifically refer to the following countries:
 - UK
 - USA
 - Republic of Ireland
 - Canada
 - Australia

  Thanks

 Mongolia

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Request for Question Clarification by nenna-ga on 03 May 2004 15:59 PDT

What kinds of legal trials? Any specific time periods? The more
information and detail you can tell us, the better it will assist
myself or another researcher in helping you find the answer.

Nenna-GA
Google Answers Researcher

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Clarification of Question by mongolia-ga on 04 May 2004 13:46 PDT

OK let's say everything from 1960 onwards and with respect to what
type of trial lets say we narrow it to only those trials which used
Juries.

You OK with this?

 Mongolia

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 04 May 2004 14:11 PDT

In the US, at least, the court system is very fractured -- there are a
variety of federal courts, state courts, county and city courts, as
well as specialized courts for administrative law, juvenile justice,
etc, etc.

As far as I know, there is no centralized source for transcripts. 
Instead, it would be necessary to identify a particular case of
interest, and then contact the clerk of the relevant court for
information about transcript availability.

Are there certain cases of interest to you?

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by mongolia-ga on 09 May 2004 12:56 PDT

Hi Nenna
I am little bit suprised by the initial comments by yourself and the
commentor. I am not a Lawyer but I understand that one of the key
concepts of the Legal system in English Language speaking countries is
that of 'precedence' where a
judge ruling in one case can be determined by the judgements in prior cases.

 To do this would surely require that one has access to prior cases.
This would probably mean that a judge would have easy access to a
database of other trial transcripts.

 If as say a legal student I was tasked with evaluating the verdict of
a particular trial , I assume I would have a way to identify other
trials
which had similiar aspects and I guess my question is how I would go
about finding trannscripts of these trials?

Perhaps it may be easier to track down what a judges ruling is on a specific
 trial? 
   
 Regards

  Mongolia

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 May 2004 15:13 PDT

mongolia-ga,
A judge's ruling on a case is a very different thing than a verbatim
transcript of the entire case, where every word uttered in court is
put down on paper.

It is the rulings of the courts that establish precedence, not the
transcripts per se (though they may be referred to for certan
details).  Many, many rulings are available via the internet, but this
is not the case for transcripts.

Are you aksing about rulings or transcripts?

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by mongolia-ga on 27 May 2004 04:48 PDT

Dear Pafalafa 

 Apologies for taking so long to get back to you on this one. For now
 lets just deal with the Judge's Ruling.

 Am I correct in assuming that a Judge's ruling and a trial transcript 
 are generally the only official documents to come out of a jury trial?

  Thanks

  Mongolia

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 27 May 2004 13:05 PDT

Actually, there's a ton of materials that come out of most legal
cases, all of which become part of the court's "docket".  But the
actual decision in the case is what most commonly becomes part of
legal databases and the like.

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell is (in my opinion) one of
the great sites of the internet, and you can learn a lot by cruising
around in it.

For instance, they post the most interesting opinions of the US Supreme Court here:

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/

and you can find cases from other countries around the world
(including those you listed) here:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/world/

Many English speaking court systems use the same format for citing cases:

ABC v XYZ 

This format makes possible a good Google trick.  If you want to find a
case involving, say, Citicorp, conduct a search on:

"citicorp v" OR "v citicorp"

and you'll come up with a lot of cases.  You can see the 1,500+ results here:

://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22citicorp+v%22+OR+%22v+citicorp%22

Of course, you can substitute any other name of interest, besides
citicorp, to see what comes up.

Have fun.  Let me know what else you need on this topic, and I'll see
if I can post it in an answer to your question.

pafalafa-ga

You should be aware that there is no centralized depository for trial
transcripts, not nationally or even statewide.

The vast majority of trials are not even transcribed.  While all
trials are taken down verbatim by a court reporter, the court reporter
does not create a transcription (the "minutes") of a trial or
proceeding unless requested by either side or the court.  In a
criminal trial, if there's a not guilty verdict, the minutes are
sealed and are likely never transcribed (no reason to, because the
State can't appeal and the defendant doesn't need to.)  If there's a
guilty verdict, the minutes are transcribed unless there's an appeal. 
In this case, the minutes are filed with the local court of appeals
and can obtained from that court for a fee.  You can always contact
the actual court reporter and request the minutes.  Be aware that the
minutes of a trial are quite expensive, typically a few dollars per
page.