Section 600.859 - Taking testimony; record; keeping index and original notes; transcript; destruction of notes.
REVISED JUDICATURE ACT OF 1961 (EXCERPT)
Act 236 of 1961
600.859 Taking testimony; record; keeping index and original notes; transcript; destruction of notes.
Sec. 859.
(1) The following testimony before a probate judge shall be recorded:
(a) Testimony in contested matters.
(b) Testimony in matters pertaining to the admission to a hospital or other facility for mentally ill or developmentally disabled persons.
(c) Testimony in matters pertaining to persons having a contagious disease.
(d) Testimony in other matters if requested by an interested party.
(e) Testimony and other proceedings required by supreme court rule.
(2) In matters not governed by subsection (1), testimony before a probate judge, probate register, or deputy probate register may be given orally without a record being made of the testimony.
(3) The court shall keep sufficient index of the testimony and the court shall keep the index and the original notes for at least 10 years. The reporter or recorder need not transcribe the testimony unless a transcript is ordered by the court or a party. Except in those cases in which the testimony is transcribed and filed with the record of the case, notes pertaining to a hearing for the admission of any person to a hospital or other place of detention as a mentally ill or developmentally disabled person or as a person with a contagious disease shall be destroyed only after the discharge of the person from the hospital or facility.
(4) Notes may not be destroyed until after 10 years after the date of the hearing or as provided in subsection (3), whichever is longer.
History: Add. 1978, Act 543, Eff. July 1, 1979 ;-- Am. 1979, Act 69, Imd. Eff. July 25, 1979 ;-- Am. 1986, Act 308, Eff. Jan. 1, 1987 ;-- Am. 2005, Act 326, Imd. Eff. Dec. 27, 2005