Translated Testimony

As society becomes increasingly more diverse culturally and linguistically, translated testimony will become a more frequent component of the American justice system. Due to the complex nature of the translation process, errors and misunderstandings of interpreted testimony are nearly unavoidable and can affect jurors'perceptions of a trial. Misjudgments may occur due to the inadvertent influences of the court interpreter or jurors' biased perceptions of a defendant's translated testimony. Psychological theories related to individuals' social identity and the human propensity to categorize other people as members of one's in-group or out-group may provide a framework for understanding the potential biasing nature of translated testimony. The implications for law and policy provided by research pertaining to translated testimony are vital for the fair and impartial treatment of all people within the U.S. justice system.

From the perspective of courts in the United States, the official language of courtroom proceedings is [Page 809]English. When a trial participant does not speak or understand English, court interpreters are used. The court interpreter's task is to completely, impartially, and accurately reiterate in English the utterances of a trial participant that originate in a speaker's native language. The interpreter also renders the utterances that originate in English into the native language so that the nonEnglish-speaking witness or defendant can understand the proceedings as well.

The number of monolingual and minimally bilingual non-English-speaking individuals who come in contact with the U.S. criminal justice system is increasing. According to the 2005 Annual Report of the Director of the Administrator's Office of the United States Courts, the number of cases requiring the use of court interpreters increased by 1.5% in 2005, with the Spanish language involved in 94% of these cases. The 2000 U.S. Census indicated that the percentage of Spanish speakers living in the United States increased by 3.2% since 1990; additionally, 10% of the Spanish-speaking population was monolingual. This rise in the monolingual Spanish-speaking population has created a need for Spanish-English interpreters, in particular in the United States.