9th Circus Throws Out Convictions--Officer Mirandized in Imperfect Spanish!

Not from The Onion, but It Ought to be: Ninth Circus Throws Out Drug and Gun Convictions, because the Arresting Officer Mirandized the Perp in Imperfect Spanish

Posted by Nicholas Stix

 

The reader who sent this wrote,

 

This is a perfect example of the very thing we had talked about before. They will have to hire police officers that have a fluency in English and Spanish both. And very few whiteys will be able to qualify.

 

Like with the Border Patrol agents. At least on the southern border a fluency in conversational Spanish not a must, and very few whitey can do that. They do give you nine months to learn. Who can do that but a few?

 

N.S.: It's even crazier than that, because it doesn't work on its own terms. Most of the Hispanic crooks the cops Mirandize aren't fluent in Spanish, or any other language! They just know street Spanish. If you handed them a confession in Spanish to sign, they wouldn't be able to read it, either. When I taught ESL in college, my white female boss explained, with a knowing nod, that our immigrant students' (mostly Dominicans) problems learning English were due to their not knowing Spanish. What she didn't explain was why they were being paid to college!

  

 

9th Circuit Says Miranda Warning Must Be Given in Correct Spanish

By Maura Dolan

July 15, 2013

Los Angeles Times

 

A Miranda warning given in both English and Spanish to a Spanish-speaking suspect is insufficient if a police officer's translation fails to convey the true meaning of the arrested person's rights, a federal appeals court decided Monday.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a drug and gun conviction on the grounds that a district judge erred by admitting comments made by the suspect after he was given the Miranda warning in English and poor Spanish.

 

{snip}

 

The detective used the Spanish word "libre" to mean without cost. But expert witnesses said that was an incorrect translation. "Libre" instead means free as "in being available or at liberty to do something," the court said.