JUSTICE EN ESPANOL
Many Courts, Even Rural Ones, Use English Classes in Sentences

BY MARTHA NEIL

It may seem familiar: A defendant stands before the judge and is found guilty as charged. But if the defendant is, say, a native Spanish-speaker who has committed a minor crime, the judges may not figuratively throw the book at the offender. Instead, the judge may literally require the defendant to open it.

In an effort to help immigrants understand the laws of their adopted country and avoid new offenses, a growing number of judges are encouraging defendants to learn English and even sentencing them to attend mandatory English classes.

Still, sentencing defendants to take English classes is unusual, according to Stephanie Scarce, a court management specialist in the North Carolina Judicial Branch. Scarce is also co-chair of the executive committee for the Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification. The group, which now has 36 states as members, focuses on helping state courts develop and maintain programs to provide high-quality interpretation to non-English speakers.   

"I don’t think it’s going on in a lot of places," says Scarce, who herself is familiar with one such program that requires convicted defendants to enroll in English classes. Billed as a first in North Carolina, it reportedly began a little over five years ago.

News reports have quoted judges who are realizing a language barrier can be behind some criminal charges. Examples cited include a man charged with resisting arrest as he was trying to get his pregnant wife to the hospital, and another man charged with a hit-and-run after he left the scene to find an English-speaking relative.

Although it is important that courts be able to communicate effectively with all immigrants, the number of Spanish-speaking residents in many areas of the country has been increasing dramatically, and Spanish today is the language spoken most frequently in the United States after English, according to U.S. census figures. So efforts tend to focus on Spanish-speakers.

Among the leaders in the effort to educate non-English-speaking offenders are several counties in Indiana that have been using an English-class sentencing option for at least a decade. Those sentences have become more popular in recent years, says Stacey Beam, chief of probation for Noble County, a rural area northwest of Fort Wayne where the Hispanic population has grown more than 400 percent during the past decade.

It is important for Latinos to learn English, Beam believes, because it can help them get jobs and communicate with those teaching their children at school. "We just see it as a win-win for everybody," she says, adding that defendants, too, apparently see the classes the county offers as beneficial.

The county also offers a Spanish-language "acculturation" program to defendants that judges may impose as part of a sentence. It is designed to teach newly arrived Latinos about differences between U.S. laws and those of their native countries, Beam explains. For example, it is not mandatory in Mexico to report an accident to the police if the cars can still be driven, but "up here, that’s a crime," she says. "So that is a big difference."

Similar Spanish-language classes about U.S. laws, including information about domestic violence and substance abuse, are being offered to defendants in Kosciusko County, Ind., beginning earlier this year.

Developed by a local lawyer, the classes help reduce recidivism, says Marsha J. Streby. She is the grants coordinator for the Otis R. Bowen Center for Human Services in Warsaw, Ind., a community mental health center that oversees both the Kosciusko and Noble classes.

In the Noble County program, which is about two years old, "there were 90-some referrals last year to the program, and there were only three who violated their probation," Streby says.

Classes intended to teach Spanish-speakers about the American legal system also are offered in Nevada, New Jersey and Tennessee.

In New Jersey, for example, an influx of Spanish-speakers into Hunterdon County prompted a local bar association to offer free seminars presented by bilingual attorneys on topics such as divorce, domestic violence, child support, traffic tickets, and dealing with an arrest under the state’s laws and legal procedures.

The Justice Court in Las Vegas offers classes in both English and Spanish on bringing a case in small claims court. And the Metropolitan General Sessions Court in Nashville, Tenn., offers a 20-hour course in both English and Spanish that is intended to teach offenders who have been arrested for driving under the influence about state laws and help them develop strategies to avoid future problems.

Meanwhile, it isn’t only those standing in front of the judge who are finding it useful to learn a new language. Judges themselves, as well as lawyers and court personnel, are increasingly seeking to learn Spanish.

All of the Noble County probation officers have taken Spanish classes, and "one of our officers has done immersion classes and actually just got back from Mexico," Beam says.

The Dallas Bar Association offers a year-round Spanish-for-lawyers program intended to teach lawyers and paralegals to read, write and speak Spanish.

Such efforts can be helpful and give Spanish-speakers a sense of being welcome in the American legal system. However, it is important that those who don’t speak English be provided with accurate, professional translation by a trained interpreter, says Isabel Framer, an English-Spanish interpreter in Copley, Ohio, who serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators.

While there has been an increasing focus on court translation services in recent years, there is still room for improvement, she says. And part of the solution is simply being aware that children, family members and friends, even when bilingual, are not properly trained to provide accurate translations of complex legal information. The University of Denver College of Law’s Colorado Interpreter Project has assembled an extensive bibliography of national information available on the Internet.

However, those who feel it’s a good idea to encourage English proficiency may disagree with methods used to do so. Sentencing defendants to take an English class, for instance, is far preferable to simply ordering them to learn the language, many believe. Judges in Florida and Tennessee have been criticized by leaders in the Hispanic community for taking the latter approach.

At the other end of the spectrum, there has also been criticism of judicial efforts to help Spanish-speakers that allegedly go too far and segregate non-English-speakers in different court programs. In Arizona, a federal lawsuit was filed earlier this year by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas over the county court system’s separate-but-equal approach. Thomas contends its system of offering different DUI programs to those who speak Spanish and American Indian languages is unconstitutional.

It’s also difficult to monitor classroom progress and set progress standards that are fair to all defendants if a judge orders English proficiency.

However, requiring attendance at English classes is a more positive approach—and one with which many defendants willingly cooperate, Beam says.

Otherwise, "I would imagine it would just be a nightmare to administer," says Eugene Illovsky, a Walnut Creek, Calif., lawyer, of a potential learn-the-language requirement. The former prosecutor serves as vice-chair of the Corrections Committee of the ABA Criminal Justice Section.

"What are you supposed to do, violate somebody’s probation if they can’t learn English?" Illovsky asks rhetorically. "Good grief, it took me a heck of a long time to learn English, and I was born here."

©2006 ABA Journal