Miranda Warnings Translations: 

A Resource For Law Enforcement From NAJIT & Ikigai

By: Aneta Pavlenko and Janis Palma, PhD

Many of you are familiar with suppression hearings involving Miranda waivers by LEP defendants, where the defense argues that the LEP speaker did not have sufficient English proficiency to understand the warnings and the prosecution insists that the defendant waived their Miranda rights voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. We too have participated in such hearings – Janis Palma as an interpreter and Aneta Pavlenko as an expert

witness – and have often wondered: why weren’t the rights presented in the defendant’s primary language? 

To give a little bit of a background, in 1966 the Supreme Court made a landmark decision: 

“The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have a lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him. If the individual indicates, prior or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease; if he states that he wants an attorney, the questioning must cease until an attorney is present.” (Miranda v. Arizona 1966, 437) 

From then on, law enforcement officers conducting custodial interrogations have been required to inform the suspects of their fundamental rights. The suspects have a choice of waiving or invoking their rights. If they decide to waive the rights and talk to the police without an attorney, attorneys may appeal and the government bears the “heavy burden” to prove that the defendants waived their rights voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently (Miranda v. Arizona 1966, 437).

In 1978, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that “if Miranda warnings are given in a language which the person being so instructed does not understand, a waiver of those rights would not be valid” (United States v. Martinez 588 F.2d 1227 (9th Cir. 1978)). 

This status quo is detrimental to all parties. Advice of rights in incomprehensible English or error-ridden Spanish (Arabic, Vietnamese, etc.) violates LEP speakers’ rights to due process and undermines the efforts of law enforcement in cases where confessions are suppressed due to inadequate delivery of the warnings. A database of trustworthy Miranda translations and recordings, easily accessible on cell phones, would greatly enhance law enforcement’s ability to deliver the warnings in the suspects’ primary languages and reduce the time and money spent on arguing the motions to suppress. 

In early 2025, NAJIT partnered with another nonprofit, IKIGAI, to embark on a long-term project to translate the Miranda warnings into eight commonly used languages, plus select languages of lesser diffusion, and make them available to law enforcement free of charge. As a starting point, we selected a commonly used English text of the Miranda warnings. Then, for each language we assembled a team of volunteers, all of them experienced interpreters, NAJIT members certified by federal or state courts. Each interpreter was asked to provide their own translation of the text. These translations were then anonymized and placed in a table, and project leaders and the team met on Zoom to discuss the pros and cons of the different translations and to collaborate on a final version. The resulting collaborative translations were published on a dedicated website in bilingual PDF documents, accompanied by recordings produced by each team: 

https://www.mirandawarningstranslations.com/

In June 2026 the Orlando Police Department approached the team leaders wanting to adopt the translations for their law enforcement officers to use. Their Senior Police Legal Advisor, Shannon Gridley Hesse, wrote: 

“It is refreshing to see someone with your expertise recognize a need and go the extra mile to address it and share that knowledge with others who can benefit from it. … We will incorporate these translations into the materials available to officers who interact with individuals who speak foreign languages. Your efforts will help us better serve and communicate with members of our diverse communities.”

At present, the site has translations in six of the most commonly used languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Haitian Creole, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, as well as two languages of lesser diffusion: Amharic, Armenian. The team leaders are now looking for volunteers with professional credentials as interpreters or translators in ASL, Turkish, Vietnamese, and other languages not yet covered by the project.

 We would love to hear from you! 

References 



• Keaton, Aaron. 2020. "You Have the Right to Keep Quiet: Translation Inadequacies in Nevada's Spanish Miranda Warnings." Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 7 (1–2): 56–76.
• Pavlenko, Aneta. 2024. "Language Proficiency as a Matter of Law: Judicial Reasoning on Miranda Waivers by Speakers with Limited English Proficiency (LEP)." International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 37 (2): 329–357.
• Rogers, Richard, A. Correa, L. Hazelwood, D. Shuman, R. Hoersting, and H. Blackwood. 2009. "Spanish Translations of Miranda Warnings and the Totality of the Circumstances." Law and Human Behavior 33: 61–69.
• Rogers, Richard, A. Correa, J. Donnelly, and E. Drogin. 2021. "Protecting the Rights of the Accused: Use of Spanish-Language Miranda Warnings in Central Florida." Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology 32 (1): 119–130.

Keep the Conversation Going

If this topic resonated with you, be sure to check out our previous blog posts for more insights on the realities of our profession, and the evolving world of judiciary translation and interpreting:

Language is Evocative  — How do you balance literal accuracy with conveying the intended meaning when interpreting or translating?

Go Team! —  What makes team interpreting the professional standard?

Leila's McDonald's —  As AI continues to evolve, where should interpreters place their focus: protecting the profession or serving LEPs?

You can find these and more in our blog archives!

Interested in sharing your insights with our community? Check out Writing for The NAJIT Observer to learn how you can contribute.

The images used in this post are sourced from Unsplash, Pixabay, AI generated, and/or credited to their rightful owner. They are used for illustrative purposes only.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position, policies, or views of the NAJIT Board of Directors or the organization as a whole. Content published in The NAJIT Observer is intended to encourage professional dialogue, reflection, and community engagement. Reader discretion is advised where topics may involve complex ethical, professional, or emotionally sensitive subject matter.