Everyone who faces accusations of a crime in criminal courts in the United States has the right to representation by a criminal defense lawyer. The court will assign a lawyer to your case if you cannot afford to hire one. These rights apply regardless of your immigration status. The Sixth Amendment applies to everyone, from U.S. citizens to permanent residents, international students, asylees, tourists, newlyweds in the process of adjusting their status to permanent residency, and undocumented immigrants. Of course, it is difficult to exercise this right meaningfully if you cannot communicate with your lawyer because of language barriers.
Federal and state lawyers require the court to provide interpreters in some circumstances, but there is still plenty of room for misunderstandings. If you are one of the many defendants being represented by a public defender, the court cares more about saving money than about exercising your rights. A Texas criminal defense lawyer has the resources to provide the best representation for you, regardless of your country of origin and your native language.
Who Qualifies as a Non-Proficient English Speaker?
In Texas, anyone whose command of spoken English is not sufficient to enable him or her to communicate with the judges and lawyers in the courtroom and express himself or herself to the jury is entitled to a court-provided interpreter. You can request an interpreter if you have difficulty understanding the judge, and judges can request interpreters for defendants if they have difficulty communicating with the defendant. If you file a fee waiver, interpreter services do not cost you anything.
You have the right to an interpreter if English is not your native language and your proficiency in spoken English is limited. Deaf defendants and witnesses also have the right to an American Sign Language interpreter. A federal court recently ruled that the criterion for interpreter eligibility is the ability to communicate with interlocutors in the courtroom, not whether one looks like an English speaker on paper. In 2021, the court granted a Cameroonian man interpreter services after protracted misunderstandings. The man’s immigration documents identify him as an “Anglophone;” in the Cameroonian context, this means that he is from the part of Cameroon that is a former English colony, not the part that was under French rule before independence. In fact, the man’s native language is an English-based creole that differs so much from spoken American English that he could not easily communicate with the judge. English-based creoles are languages where most of the vocabulary is of English origin, but the grammar and pronunciation are different from the English spoken in the U.S. and Great Britain. English-based creoles in different parts of the world vary widely from each other.
Hiring a Criminal Defense Lawyer Is the Surest Way to Overcome Language Barriers
If you hire a criminal defense lawyer, your lawyer will stop at nothing to provide the best defense, even if it means translating hundreds of pages of documents and spending many hours talking to you through an interpreter.
Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC About Criminal Defense Cases
A Dallas criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges and are not proficient in English. Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, in Dallas, Texas, to discuss your case.