Washington Courts: Judicial News Report Detail

Interpreting by phone

Geographical factors will be minimized when state-certified, foreign language interpreters for non-evidentiary court hearings become available by phone.

The native Cambodian apprehended for taking shellfish illegally on the coast, the Russian immigrant charged with a DUI in a small eastern Washington town, the Spanish-speaking defendant appearing in a southeastern Washington court on a reckless driving charge--all of their cases will be served by professionally trained, phone-in interpreters when the new service becomes available this fall.

Now, geography often dictates that courts make do with whatever bilingual talent can be found locally for a foreign language defendant's first appearance or arraignment. This means the defendant may not hear much of what is really said in those hearings.

During a recent, day-long training program, more than 65 certified interpreters took part in the first official telephone interpreting training course offered in Washington state. The class was part of a larger effort to develop a statewide telephone interpreting network designed to link certified interpreters and courts via phone, thus eliminating interpreter travel expense and greatly expanding the availability of interpreters to smaller courts, particularly those in non-urban or remote locations. Held at Tacoma Community College, the event was sponsored by the Office of the Administrator for the Court's Court Interpreting Program. The course was developed by program director Joanne Moore.

Several firsts

Commercial telephone-interpreting services are used by courts in other states to supplement in-person interpreting, but they have been criticized for their high cost to court customers--$125 and up per hour--and questions have been raised about their suitability for legal hearings. Washington is the first state known to take this court system-sponsored approach, providing certified interpreters statewide.

The telephone innovation is one of several firsts for Washington's interpreter program. Certification of court interpreters began in Washington State in 1990 --several years ahead of other states--and in 1995, the program was one of two chosen by the National Center for State Courts to lay groundwork for the organization of a national, state interpreter certification consortium. The consortium now has 15 states on its membership roster.

The first state to create ongoing education for interpreter candidates, Washington's national role is now focused on developing interpreter education leadership. States new to interpreter testing are discovering that in the absence of comprehensive training programs, almost no candidates pass certification tests for languages other than Spanish. Washington has been asked to share details of its successful education program at a State Court Interpreter Certification Consortium in Chicago at the end of July.

State Supreme Court Justice James Dolliver, chair of the state court interpreter administrative committee, and Moore recently put together Immigrants in Courts, an innovative, 280-page anthology which explores access to justice obstacles encountered by immigrants when they become involved in court proceedings in the United States. The State Justice Institute-funded book will be published this fall.

Meanwhile, interpreter certification tests continue. Washington state now has 235 certified court interpreters who work in seven languages, including Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Cambodian (Khmer), Cantonese, Laotian, Russian, and Korean.

The challenges of interpreter availability

In 1997, the Supreme Court's budget committee asked interpreter program participants to look into increasing interpreter access through the use of technology--both telephone conferencing and, in the future, video conferencing.

In January 1998, to discover how state courts were handling interpreting issues, OAC surveyed 105 courts. Poll results showed two-thirds of Washington's courts had experienced significant increases in their overall need for court interpreters over the past three years. It further revealed that while the need for interpreters is pressing, it is also erratic.

Interpreters are usually hired on an as-needed basis. Only six courts said they had full-time, salaried interpreters; another 21 said they held formal contracts with part-time interpreters.

The survey disclosed several obstacles courts face in appointing certified interpreters: Not enough interpreters available locally; inadequate notice time to find a certified interpreter; and below-market compensation of interpreters by some courts.

Improving interpreter services

A number of interpreter appointment problems were revealed through the survey, and through ongoing consultation calls from interpreters and courts to the program director. In response, Dolliver circulated a memorandum to all judges asking for input on their particular interpreter appointment problems, including the requirement that courts obtain interpreters for juvenile court cases and the courts' obligation to pay for interpreters for indigent parties in civil cases.

Program builders also adopted an emphasis on local, county-wide testing, to meet courts' needs for local certified interpreters. Currently, the program is testing and training Vietnamese-speaking court interpreters in Clark County and Spanish-speaking court interpreters in Lewis County. These tests were requested by the courts due to the fact that very few or no certified interpreters for specific languages were available.

An effective solution

Statewide, the investigation confirmed the budget committee's preliminary conclusion that telephone interpreting could be used to bridge the availability gap. It also can increase the use of certified interpreters in Washington courts, while offering more employment opportunities to certified interpreters who live in other areas.

The late-June training session in Tacoma signaled the start of the effort to create a telephone interpreting network. The interpreter training sessions will be repeated at least once more this summer, and a list of telephone-trained certified interpreters will be circulated to all courts in the fall. Judges will be offered a session on telephone interpreting at their annual fall conference in Ocean Shores.

"Telephone interpreting is different from in-person interpreting in several respects," Moore noted. "First, the interpreter has no visual cues, because he or she is located outside the courtroom."

"Second, Court Rule 11.2 requires the entire proceeding to be interpreted consecutively unless rarely available simultaneous interpreting equipment is available. That means that the interpreter must repeat everything the parties say after they finish speaking, in two- or three-sentence chunks."

Interpreters have also discovered that telephone interpreting can be chaotic if the judge, attorneys, party, and interpreters don't observe a few rules:

• Working without visual cues, attorneys and parties often forget they must wait for the interpreter to finish the interpretation.
• Good equipment is essential. Voice-activated speaker phones often cut speakers off in the middle of a sentence.
• The interpretation method must be explained to the party before the proceeding begins. Otherwise, many parties become confused.
• Participants must be patient. Consecutively interpreted hearings take at least twice as long as a non-interpreted hearing.

Next step

Once phone training has been received by all interpreters, it is anticipated the telephone "network" will be used only for initial appearances, arraignments, and other brief appearances. Under court rule (GR 11.2) telephone interpreting is restricted to non-evidentiary hearings.

"For a fraction of the cost of paying travel time, mileage, waiting time, and interpreting time, a court can bring a certified interpreter into court via telephone or video conference. This system is a win-win solution to many availability problems," said Moore. "Initial hearings and arraignments are important stages of the proceedings and non-English speaking defendants need accurate interpretation in these early hearings."

Joanne Moore, director of the state interpreting program since 1989, contributed to this report.