Accused killer’s defense must pay translation costs

Accused killer’s defense must pay translation costs

BY JAMES HALPIN
Published: April 11, 2015



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Mark Moran/Staff Photographer Oscar Lozano-Garcia is led into the Penn Place building in Wilkes-Barre for a hearing Monday afternoon.


WILKES-BARRE — Citing William the Conqueror and centuries-old English common law, Luzerne County prosecutors say there is no way they should have to pay the costs of translating court documents for a Mexican national accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend and stashing her plastic-bound corpse in the attic of her Hazleton apartment.

Oscar Lozano-Garcia, 37, is charged with criminal homicide in the death of 32-year-old mother Maria Brea, who was strangled days before Christmas 2012.

As part of discovery in the case, Lozano-Garcia’s defense requested all documents be translated into Spanish at the county’s expense.
But in a motion filed Thursday, Assistant District Attorneys Daniel Zola and Michelle Hardik argue the prosecution should not have to pay for it, saying there is no legal precedent for such an imposition.

If the defense decides an expert is required to perform a service, the defense pays for the expert — and translation is no different, they argue.

“English is the predominate language of the United States,” they wrote in a memorandum that cites English common law and the fact that Latin and French were the language of the English courts for centuries beginning with the reign of William the Conqueror, who ruled England in the 11th Century.

The filing notes that under King George II, British courts began using English exclusively.

“Absent any Pennsylvania law superseding that, this nearly 300-year-old English statute offers the only guidance,” they wrote.
A hearing on the matter was held Friday before Luzerne County President Judge Richard Hughes III. Hughes agreed with the prosecution, saying the costs of translation are the responsibility of the defense.

Brea disappeared Dec. 14, 2012, after breaking up with Garcia and failing to pick her children up from two Hazleton Area schools. Less than a week later, police found Brea’s body bound in plastic and tape hidden in the attic of a home in the 300 block of East Diamond Avenue in Hazleton.

The attic door was padlocked and shut, with tape covering its seams, prosecutors said.

Police got a warrant for Lozano-Garcia, who had fled the area. He was later captured in Puebla, Mexico, and brought back for prosecution

http://standardspeaker.com/news/accu...osts-1.1861741

Maybe this is where it begins, the fight that determines whether we have a national language or not. Well, SCOTUS will take care of that, we are very likely multi-cultural.