Court case an example of language barrier problems

By Timothy Pratt

Monday, July 29, 2002 | 10:54 a.m.

After two and a half years behind bars, Juan Granados spent his first day of freedom in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Next stop was the Immigration and Naturalization Service to renew his residency, so he would have legal permission to return to work at his former job cooking for a restaurant on the Strip.

The 29-year-old Salvadoran native was released on $25,000 bail Friday morning, after having his criminal conviction overturned based on his inability to speak English and errors committed by the court interpreters assigned to his case. It's believed to be the first time in state history a case has been overturned for such reasons.

And though Granados spent no time celebrating his release, his case sets an important example of how the region's rapidly growing Hispanic population continues to raise challenges in different areas of civic life, resulting in new scenarios that often require the revision of established rules and procedures. "Issues about interpreters have been raised before, but never with this result," said Mariteresa Rivera-Rodgers, program administrator for the Eighth Judicial District court interpreters for 20 years. Rivera-Rodgers oversees the interpreters who worked on the Granados case.

A new trial is set for Jan. 13, 2003, and the District Attorney's office is planning to appeal.

"We believe the record is clear that the defendant has gotten his day in court," said Lynn Robinson, chief deputy of post-conviction processes for the office.

The case turns on Granados making an Alford plea to kidnapping his common-law wife in May 2000. In an Alford plea, a defendant pleads guilty although he believes in his innocence because the prosecution can prove elements of the crime. The sentence issued was 5 years to life.

But it wasn't until several months later, after reviewing his court papers with a bilingual cellmate, that he realized what had happened. He says he understood his sentence to be 5 to 15 years, with the possibility of parole in 4 or 5.

As Judge Michael Cherry's decision two years later explains, "the court interpreter translated the written plea bargain into written Spanish, but Mr. Granados never saw the Spanish translation. There is insufficient evidence that the court reporter orally translated the plea bargain into Spanish for Mr. Granados."

The problem of Hispanic defendants not understanding aspects of their court cases is a national one, said Angela Arboleda, civil rights policy analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based organization, the National Council of La Raza.

"This case sheds light on what happens to many Latinos in the criminal justice system ... where adequate translating done in a timely fashion so that the defendant understands what they are facing is needed," Arboleda said.

"We have seen cases around the nation where many inmates also don't understand what's happening in their cases ... so really, they're being punished twice."

Rivera-Rodgers said that courtroom procedures could be changed to better serve Southern Nevada's changing racial and ethnic mosaic.

"In my point of view, pleas have to be translated into the defendant's language beforehand and attorneys need to take time to have interpreters with them even when the defendant says he understands a little bit of English," Rivera-Rodgers said.

"You have to understand that because of the growth of the non-English speaking population here, 20 years ago I needed interpreters for 100 cases a month and now that number is 3,000," she said.

"The growth is so fast there's been no time to implement procedures to make sure things don't fall through the cracks."

Meanwhile, Granados continues his efforts to return to the life he began 13 years ago when he crossed the border fleeing El Salvador's civil war, after being imprisoned for a month by that country's government and freed by the International Red Cross based on human rights violations.

"Sometimes I think bad luck just follows me," Granados said Friday morning.

When asked if he realized the importance of his case, he said, "I don't want to be famous or anything. I just want to show that they made some mistakes in my case.

"Like me, there are many more people out there that don't understand the language of this country."