Court Interpreters

In a rebuff to the Governor, the legislature restored to the FY 2005 budget funding requested by the state judiciary to hire six Spanish-speaking court interpreters. The lack of adequate interpreter services for criminal defendants has been a source of concern for years. Presently, the courts rely on a hodgepodge of makeshift measures, including bilingual clerks and defendants’ family members, to provide interpreters to defendants. The ACLU applauded the legislature’s action, but noted that the funding still leaves many other people, especially Portuguese, Cape Verdean and Southeast Asian defendants, without formal interpreter services.