Week 6: Getting to Know About Court Interpreters and Translators
Dain Y -
Hello everyone! Thanks for visiting this week’s blog post!
This week, I was able to meet with the County Court’s main translator, Ms. Judith Costello. Through this meeting, I was able to learn a lot more in depth of the role of a court interpreter which I would like to share with you all.
Before I begin, I would like to highlight that every citizens is given the right to a translator / interpreter if they request. It will not cost them additional charge, or bring bias against their case. In fact, before the a trial in which there is an interpreter, the judge reads to the jury that this will be a case with an interpreter (NOTE: they do not say whether it is defense or prosecution interpreter as interpreters are partial similar to judges.), and that the jury should not let the interpreter bias their perceptions of evidence as in witness testimonies, documents, DNA testing, etc.
This going off topic a bit, but an individual’s right for an interpreter as well as the Court Interpreter Act in Arizona actually came about due to a case called the Hanigan case. (I will only add a very short summary of the case but I highly recommend looking into the exact facts as it was very controversial and interesting.) On August 18, 1976, caucasian ranchers in southern Arizona kidnapped, tortured, and robbed three Mexican migrants who crossed the border at Douglas on their way to Elfrida for farm work.
The case was tried in court up to 3 times during the span of 1976 and 1981, but during one of the trials, an all white trial acquitted the Hanigans (meaning that they decided the verdict for the white ranchers as being not-guilty). Though there were more reasons, one that should be noted was that the translator at that case accidentally mis-translated the word for the object in which one of the Mexican migrants was chained to, chained to a cup v.s. chained to a toilet, influencing the facts of the case.
What followed was several statutes Congress enacted that attempt to remedy these problems including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Court Interpreters Act of 1978.
And similarly to what people may see in law shows, all citizens have to right to be read their Miranda Rights, and later sign whether or not they were read then whether or not they understood their rights.
Now, firstly, I learned that there is a distinction between translators, who translate written to written information, then interpreters, who translate speech to speech. Next, one must be qualified in order to become a court interpreter specifically. Past qualifications such as being bilingual in a language or having previously worked translation jobs as a freelancer does not qualify someone to be an interpreter. All interpreters in Arizona must take the Arizona Court Interpreter Credentialing Program (ACICP) in order to join the interpreting profession, with their being 5 tiers of Credentials one can receive.
Below I have included the different Tiers and their requirements.
Tier 1 Credential
- Create a profile in the Arizona Court Interpreter Registry
- Complete two online classes
- Pass the English Written Exam and the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) in your non-English working language.
Tier 2-4 Credential
- Possess an ACICP Tier 1 credential
- Pass the Oral Court Interpreter Exam, which tests all 3 modules of interpreting
Tier A (the 5th) Credential
- Possess an ACICP Tier 1 credential
- Pass the OPI at the highest level
Here in the Coconino County Court, the most frequently / commonly needed language is Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL); however, the languages: Navajo, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Arabic are also commonly needed. Additionally, I found that there can be many cases from truck drivers, so such languages like Hindi or Punjabi are commonly requested as well.
When interpreting, there are 3 different types of interpretation:
- Simultaneous
- Consecutive
- Slight Translation
Simultaneous interpretation is interpreting done simultaneously (at the same time as another speaker). Because it relies less on memory, it’s used for longer speeches, though interpreters generally swap out with a partner every 30 minutes or so. At the courts here, I learned that translations switch off every 30 to 50 minutes to maintain the quality of their translations. But apart from that, interpreters must pick up all talking that is being done without necessarily a pause unless they request it.
Consecutive interpretation is interpreting done consecutively (after a speaker has finished talking). So, if the attorney asks the witness a question, they pause, allow for the interpreter to repeat the sentence to the witness/victim/victim’s family/etc., hear the LEP (Limited English Proficiency) speaker’s response in their native language, then hears the interpreters translation.
Slight translation is transforming written message into a spoken message.
An example being if some international companies user agreement (such as Hyundai cars) needed to be read aloud.
Another aspect of interpreting is that the interpreter is free to state to the judge at any moment that they need a repeat of the word, they need a break to search up a word, they need someone in the court room to speak at a slower pace, or in some cases, if the interpreter is not familiar with the terms of a testimony (such as the physics of water tank trucks), they are allowed to pause the case in order to meet with an interpreter/translator familiar with those terms, then learn them through that method.
In some cases, the translating/interpreting office may even recruit an interpreter that is not a court interpreter, but just an individual that is well versed in medical terms for instance, then have them be the interpreter during that specific and short duration of the trial.
As for equipment, here are images of the equipment this specific court uses.
[The headset and transmitter are used by the interpreter, and the earphone and receiver are used by the LEP participant.]
Below, I have included the link to the 18 Court Interpreter Canons that go into further detail to assure that the interpreting process is partial.
https://www.prd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CodeEthics.pdf
Now in terms of bias, my goal for upcoming days is to also meet with the Court Librarian, Ms. Gretchen Hornberger, and hopefully find more statistics for my central topic of linguistic bias in court / to the jury, but some areas in which I have already learned there can be bias or disadvantage for some language groups is the language used itself.
Languages with a more industrialized economy or society may already have many law terms that can be easily translated into english and vice versa (such as the romance languages like French or even asian languages like Korean or Japanese). However, indigenous languages, such as Navajo, does not often have a term for “arraignment” (for example) and would require the translator to have to translate the meaning in one or two sentences just for one word.
Additionally, after hearing the Hanigan case, I learned how important the make-up of the jury is when looking at jury bias. Often times, the jury is made up of a specific demographic of people, an example being that younger individuals that may not often be recruited for jury duty due to needing to study or having children that need to be dropped off/picked up. Therefore, there have been increased efforts to raise voter awareness in certain demographic areas in order to have a more diverse jury composition.
Finally, with the Miranda rights that I mentioned earlier, an issue there is that some LEP individuals may not understand the concept of Miranda rights when they are told of them at the initial arrest. And although I mentioned that they can mark that they did not understand their rights, often culturally, they believe that they cannot say “no” to law enforcement, and mark that they did in contradiction.
Thank you for reading!
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