A convicted murder in Florida is getting a new trial because the only copy of the trial transcript was destroyed by a computer virus,
[Court reporter Terlesa] Cowart, a courts spokeswoman told the Miami Herald, put the trial transcript on an internal disc instead, and then erased the data from the stenography machine’s memory disc.
She did back the disk up on her computer, but a virus on the computer later erased all of her notes. All that remained was a transcript of one pretrial hearing and the trial’s closing arguments.
It is bizarre that Florida courts don’t create at least a digital audio recording of all trial proceedings and have a backup system in place. It is crazy to think the pictures of my action figure collection have more backup redundancy than the official proceedings of the trial of someone accused of murder.