Thread: Need for court interpreters growing quickly

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Posted on Sun, Aug. 07, 2005

Need for court interpreters growing quickly

By Sara Eaton

The Journal Gazette


Diana Vegas was sworn in by the judge for a 20-minute appearance in Allen Superior Court. She stood next to the witness stand, near the jury impaneled for a murder trial.

She listened to questions attorneys asked in English and translated the inquiry to the witness who speaks Spanish. Vegas then translated the answer of the witness from Spanish to English for the entire court to hear.

Vegas is one of numerous interpreters used by Allen Superior and Circuit courts for everything from criminal and juvenile cases to divorces and custody battles, to speeding tickets and small-claims disputes.

The local courts’ need for interpreters of many languages has grown dramatically over the past few years.

Only six years ago, DeSoto Translation and Marketing served as a Spanish-only service, company president Salvadore Soto said. The company, at 1301 Lafayette St., now offers translation services in more than 40 languages. Two years ago, it entered into an agreement with Allen Superior and Circuit courts to provide interpreters for hearings.

As the need has grown, so has the cost. In 1999, the county paid about $20,000 for interpreters – an amount that jumped to nearly $70,000 in 2004. The dramatic local increase is evident daily in Allen County courts and has been a growing need in legal communities across the state and nation.

How it works

Each day, Vegas reports to the Allen County Justice Center, where all misdemeanor and traffic matters are addressed. Vegas stands before the courtroom gallery and asks in Spanish whether anyone needs translation assistance. Then she writes down the names and case numbers, alerts the prosecutors and aids in interpreting through the cases.

She began attending misdemeanor court four days a week about two years ago, she said. The fifth day of the week she is an interpreter for Criminal Division Services – a division of the court that interacts and instructs offenders about the rules of probation and other requirements of their sentence.

Occasionally, Vegas must be at the Allen County Courthouse to help with felony, civil and family court hearings. When she is needed at the courthouse, a specific hearing time and date is scheduled in advance.

Although Spanish is the most prevalent language requiring interpreters, judges and court officials identified Burmese as the language emerging as a close second. Other languages include Creole, French, Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic, Bosnian, Mandarin Chinese, Serbo-Croatian, Vietnamese, Hindi, Korean, Laotian, German and Amharic.

Administrative Assistant Rose Moya is in charge of scheduling interpreters for Allen Superior Court. She has a notebook stuffed with paperwork as thick as two heavy phonebooks sitting on her desk at the Allen County Courthouse. It includes only requests from this year.

Looking through the first week of August, Moya counts 14 requests.

The increase has led officials to change the way interpreter costs and appointments are handled, Moya said.

For the 2005 budget, court officials decided to add a specific line item to the annual budget to better manage and account for the money spent on interpreters, according to a grant application filed by the court.

So far this year, Allen Superior Court officials have spent more than $38,000 on interpreters, according to figures Moya compiled.

Vegas is one of eight state-certified court interpreters in Indiana. She described the certification process as grueling, explaining she had to pass oral and written tests, each of which address legal terminology, ethics and grammar.

To earn the certification, Vegas said she had to be able to do three types of translation – simultaneous, consecutive and document:

•Simultaneous requires an interpreter to listen and repeat courtroom proceedings to a person as they are happening, a skill Vegas said requires a good memory and knowledge of vocabulary.

“A lot of people have trouble with simultaneous because there is not much time to think,� she said.

•Consecutive translation is when an interpreter translates questions and answers of court officials, attorneys, witnesses, victims and defendants after each has finished speaking.

•Document translation requires an interpreter to read documents in one language and be able to translate the paperwork into another language.

The skills of an interpreter determine what effect translation will have on court hearings, Criminal Division Judge Kenneth R. Scheibenberger said. Generally, hearings with interpreters are slower, he said.

For example, Scheibenberger said a typical guilty plea hearing takes about 10 minutes but with an interpreter that time can double. The most dramatic difference is seen in trials, he said.

Some interpreters are skilled well enough that the translation process doesn’t add any time to hearings, Criminal Magistrate Robert J. Schmoll said.

Equal service to all

Interpreters are necessary in the courtroom, but sometimes the need and expense is frustrating when defendants seem to be abusing it, Scheibenberger said.

Some people charged with crimes will make several appearances in court, communicate in English and then return to court later and request an interpreter, he said.

In those situations, the money could be better spent, Scheibenberger said.

“Sometimes I feel the defendant is playing games,� he said.

There is at least one case in Allen County where the need for an interpreter significantly delayed a trial.

The case involved people who spoke Russian, and officials had a difficult time finding an interpreter for the case. Then when an interpreter was assigned, the trial was continued after jury selection began because the interpreter realized some of those involved in the case were friends of the interpreter’s family, Schmoll said.

Neither Scheibenberger nor Schmoll believe having interpreters in court degrades the quality of service to people using the court system, but Schmoll said the language barrier often prohibits referrals to programs.

Schmoll began on the bench in juvenile court in 1979, a time when the use of interpreters was nearly non-existent. Now, he said, an interpreter appears in his courtroom for criminal arraignments, guilty pleas and other hearings almost daily.

“I don’t know how many bilingual programs are out there,� Schmoll said, trying to list the few he could think of off the top of his head. “It limits the agencies that we normally refer to, especially for domestic violence and drug and alcohol cases.�

Trend in certification

The job of an interpreter is solely to be the voice of the person who speaks a foreign language, Vegas said.

Often, people will ask her advice, which she is neither able nor qualified to provide, she said. When that happens, Vegas translates the question back to the court word for word, she said.

It is important that interpreters do not have any relationship with the person they are translating to ensure the translation is accurate and unbiased, Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards said.

Richards has also noticed that the increase for translation services and said finding an interpreter can be difficult if the group of people in the community speaking a particular language is small because they often all know each other.

Richards intentionally asked Vegas to interpret during the murder trial last week because of her certification, she said.

The state certification program began as the result of a 2001 study that showed Indiana’s lack of preparedness in dealing with residents who do not speak English.

Certification programs vary by state if they exist at all, according to The Growing Need for Qualified Court Interpreters, a 2004 report published by the National Center for State Courts.

More and more states are now developing certification programs.

The report also states that some areas are struggling to address the need for interpreters because of the sudden explosion of one population, such as in Georgia where the Hispanic population grew 300 percent over a decade.

Despite having the largest population of Arabic people outside the Mideast, Michigan had only two certified interpreters of Arabic, the report states.

As in Allen County, the cost of interpreters is rising nationwide.

In 2003, California spent $58 million on interpreters, increasing by $10 million in 2004. Florida spent $5 million in 2003 and that grew to $8.5 million in 2004.

The system set up in Allen County is much better than what it used to be even a decade ago and most court officials say it works well. Schmoll said before the demand was so high, family members or friends would volunteer to translate in court.

Being an interpreter is demanding and a specialized skill – a point everyone should remember, translation business president Soto said.

“Just because you like to cut hair doesn’t make you a good barber,� Soto said. “Just because you learned Spanish in high school doesn’t make you a good interpreter. It takes a lot of training, especially in courts. I’m confused sometimes when I attend court and it’s in English.�

JUST GET THEM OUT OF THE COUNTRY!!

They are too helpless, too needy, too everything we don't need.

SAVE LIVES, DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS.

SAVE JOBS, DEPORT ILLEGAL ALIENS.

SAVE AMERICA, DEPORT CONGRESS!!