On a hot August day last year, Linda Smurthwaite was cooped up in a tiny room with about 30 other people at the Utah State Prison.
William Andrews, convicted in 1974 of the slayings of two teenagers and a woman in Ogden's Hi Fi Shop, was pleading with the Utah State Board of Pardons to commute his death sentence.The hearing room had an air conditioner, but the roar of its motor drowned out the testimony. It was run only during breaks and did little to diffuse the emotionally-charged atmosphere.
Through it all, Smurthwaite quietly recorded the days' events on her stenograph machine, capturing every detail of the proceedings - from the gripping testimony of a Hi Fi survivor to the mundane act of entering affidavits into evidence.
At the end of the grueling hearing conducted on a Thursday and Friday, almost everyone involved was emotionally and physically spent.
But Smurthwaite's work had only begun. The professional court reporter spent the entire weekend transcribing her stenographer's notes. The following Tuesday she delivered to pardons officials the last of the 600-page transcript.
"That was one of the most interesting experiences I've had," Smurthwaite said in a recent interview. "It was one of the most difficult as far emotions were concerned."
Smurthwaite has worked as a court reporter for 14 years. She and two associates operate Intermountain Court Reporters. Their assignments vary greatly, whether a criminal trial or public hearing. They are sometimes hired to transcribe speeches at conventions or shareholders meetings.
On most assignments, the reporters are paid a per diem, usually $100 a day, and charge their clients for copies of the transcripts they produce.
Smurthwaite, who can write 260 words per minute, makes court reporting appear easy. And many people who enroll in the Intermountain College of Court Reporting, of which Smurthwaite is president, have the same perception.
Yet, the dropout rate is nearly 75 percent, she said.
"It's not that easy. It's a difficult thing to learn," she said. In the first three months of school, students learn the theory. The remainder of the time is spent building speed and accuracy. Most students spend 21/2 years refining the craft.
"It's like learning a foreign language and writing it at an ungodly speed," she said.
Reporters write by sound and each word is written as a combination of letters. Unlike a typewriter, the keyboard of stenograph machine has four keys representing vowels and 17 for consonants. The keyboard also has number keys.
Students undergo live dictation exercises as well as transcribe audio tapes. To pass the national licensing test, students must write 225 words per minute at 95 percent accuracy.
However, to pass their courses at Intermountain, students must write with 98.5 percent accuracy. "We're not perfect but we'd better be close," she said.
The school and the court reporting business are located at 5980 S. 300 East.
Founded in 1979 by Smurthwaite's brother, Russ Tarleton, the college was the first in Salt Lake City dedicated solely to teaching court reporting. Its first location was a four-room house in area of 13th East and Vine Street.
Smurthwaite was reared in California and entered court reporting school two weeks after high school graduation. At age 20 she was working professionally and teaching part-time at a court reporting school.
She visited Utah shortly after her brother opened the school to assist him with the teaching duties. "I told him I'd help out for three months. . . That was 10 years ago," she said.
Once the school was firmly established, Tarleton left the business in 1983 to attend law school. "He decided he wanted to be on the other side of the machine and say something," Smurthwaite says. Then 26, Smurthwaite operated the school at its former location until moving to the Murray location in 1988.
Even though she had worked as a court reporter 10 years and had taught court reporting in California before she moved to Utah, Smurthwaite said she had difficulty convincing local banks to lend her money to construct the school building.
She recalled one loan officer who summarily dismissed her application without reviewing her income statements or leasing history. She said she perceived the loan officer mistrusted her because of her age, possibly her sex.
"I perceived he felt I wasn't old enough or experienced enough. And he was younger than I was," she said.
But she persisted and was able to secure loans through a Utah bank and the Small Business Administration.
Court reporters can earn a handsome living. A 1987 survey by the National Shorthand Reporters Association showed the average beginning salary of court reporters to be about $22,000 a year. In addition reproters earn an average of $8,000 in transcription fees.
Marshall Jorpeland, spokesman for the national association, said income varies by region, type of job and number of hours a reporter is willing to work. Smurthwaite said full-time reporters in Salt Lake City can earn up to $60,000 a year.
The job carries many responsibilities. The record of a court proceeding must be accurate to ascertain matters of law and fact are clearly understood when verdicts are reviewed by appellate courts.
`It's a profession, not a job,' Smurthwaite said. "That's why we're paid so well."
Nearly all of Smurthwaite's graduates have been offered jobs before they completed their college work. But the training does not come cheap. Tuition at Intermountain is $275 a month, but students are taught in small groups and receive a great deal of one-to-one counseling, and the school offers classes day and night.
Students also must purchase a stenograph machine and most court reporters use computers to speed their transcription. The tow machines can cost as much as $10,000 combined.
In addition to recording judiciaL proceedings and other matters of record, a number of court reporters are transcribing closed-caption television shows.
Smurthwaite has transcribed seminars and speeches by Drs. Robert Jarvik and William DeVries, who implanted an artifical heart in Seattle dentist Barney Clark at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center.
"It was the most difficult thing I've ever done, but it was the most interesting."
Ironically, Jarvik and DeVries were intrigued by Smurthwaites's profession, she said, "These people could have taken me apart piece by piece and put me back together again and they were interested in my little machine."