A court reporter in Fannin County, Ga., will not have to release her audio recording of a hearing earlier this year in which the judge referred to a black witness using the N-word.
Judge Martha Christian, who was not part of that March hearing, ruled earlier this month that there is no reason to make the audio available to the public. Mark Thomason, the publisher of the Fannin Focus, had tried to convince Christian that the audio revealed information not found in the official court transcript.
But according to Christian’s Sept. 16 order, she listened to the audio along with Thomason, his attorney, the court reporter and the court reporter’s attorney. Thomason had argued that the audio would reveal the quiet voices of two sheriff’s investigators using the N-word in the background, which is not found in the transcript.
But, Christian wrote in her order, “after listening as carefully as the Court could, the Court did not hear any ‘whispered voices.'”
Christian ruled that Thomason cannot have the audio.