Supreme Court to consider paying for courtroom translators

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Supreme Court this week was expected to listen to arguments on whether state courts should be required to pay for translators to assist defendants who do not understand English.\nIndiana courts require defendants to hire translators on their own if they can afford them. Courts sometimes provide interpreters if defendants prove they are indigent. Nothing in state law requires courts to provide them, said Lilia Judson, executive director of State Court Administration in Indiana.\nIn the case before the justices Thursday, a defendant in a drug case out of Clark County is asking that Indiana provide state-funded translators as Kentucky does.\nIndiana’s approach “discriminates against people who don’t understand English,” Stephen Beardsley, attorney for defendant Jesus Arrieta, said last week. He said it imposes on someone who is presumed innocent “the extra burden” of paying for something that is intrinsic to the legal process.\n“We don’t pay the judge’s salary. We don’t pay for the court reporter,” Beardsley said of defendants.\nArrieta was arrested June 10, 2005, on a charge of dealing cocaine, a felony that carries a prison term of 20 to 50 years.\nBecause Arrieta doesn’t speak English, Clark Superior Court Judge Cecile Blau made sure that a translator, paid by the court, was present at his initial hearing four days after the arrest.\nBut Blau told Arrieta two months later that he would have to pay to have a required certified translator present at the rest of his proceedings. The court would pay for a translator only if Arrieta, who had hired his own lawyer, could prove he could not afford to pay one.\n“Just as if we appoint a public defender, basically there has to be a showing of need,” Blau explained in her ruling.\nArreita appealed to the Indiana Court of Appeals, which upheld Blau in a 2-1 decision in November. Arrieta then appealed to the state Supreme Court. His drug-dealing case is on hold pending the appeal, and he is free on bond.\n“Our legislature has made a policy decision to require trial courts to provide interpreters at government expense only when the defendant is indigent. Any change in that policy is best made by the legislature, not by the courts,” Appeals Court Chief Judge John Baker wrote in the majority opinion.\nJudge Terry Crone concurred. But Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote a dissenting opinion that mirrors Arrieta’s position.\n“Requiring a non-English-speaking defendant to pay for an interpreter, to me, would be tantamount to requiring any defendant to pay for a courtroom, a bailiff, even a judge,” she wrote.\nKentucky courts spent $1.37 million in 2006 on interpreting services, up from $892,700 \nin 2003.