How to answer the judge in court

Hi! The judge will require you to answer with a specific sign or voice. Head nods or gestures are not accepted by the court as responses for the court record.

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• ASL
• Deaf
• Hard
• of
• Hearing
• court
• responses
• judge

[Shelllium]

Hey all~

I was going to remove this vid.. but then all our discussion would be lost. I have conferred with my mentors and will do a new post... after the holidays? Here is a question: Is a head-nod and asking "Sign?" the same as a hearing terp asking the witness/defendant "can you pls speak up?" Linguistically equivalent? Functionally equivalent?

There's something wrong if you're always right ;o)

~SH

[Shelllium]

Wow that was interesting...I still haven't heard back from Carla Mathers so will try my next mentor. Something I thought about today is polling the judges in my area. It would be informative to know what their perspective is on this type of court interpreter behavior. I also would love to hear what the Spanish terp sees as ethical interpreter behavior in similar circumstances. I'm also going to check out NAJIT (Nat Assn Judicial Interp./Transl.) My computer's working now so I'll post soon.

[Shelllium]

Howdy!

I'm waiting for a response from my previous mentor, Carla Mathers, on this.  Thanks for the SPP reference. I'll do a follow-up vlog soon, fear not.

SH

[Shelllium]

I'll do a follow-up on best practices.

SH

[Shelllium]

Second, the judges in my court area know me. They trust my prompt, just like they trust the Spanish interpreter who works every day and says "could you pls speak up" to the person if too quiet to hear. Third, it's not about taking over, it's about getting interpretable input. Fourth ;o) I'm not interpreting for trials, witnesses on the stand, heavy duty cases etc... these are district court and some superior ct. cases.

Your faithful intepreter peer

SH

[Shelllium]

Hello ;o) I'm used to GMAG so no hard feelings ;o) Three thoughts.... One: I've done it the other way for a long time, having the judge go over the expectations etc... sometimes very grumpy and frustrated. I basically found that a very simple one sign prompt with facial expression solved the problem with no harm done. I don't sign a whole sentence at all. One sign "sign?" with facial expression. Clients routinely self correct after that.

[growlwolf1]

hey.. court won't accepted when i write it down show paper say no. then judge decided set next month .. OmGGG lots often next month next month its make me pain in ass!

[torment90]

You're awesome! That's true--I've done a couple of sit-ins for court interpreting and it's quite typical to see a Deaf or Hard of Hearing just nod "yes" or "no" and expect the interpreter to voice that--definitely not acceptable.

[Superkdc79]

Well you are right in assuming it is handled the same as a clarification. An interpreter should never clarify what a witness says without the courts permission. Again, no one understands sign and when the witness signs people expects a voiced action from the interpreter. If the interpreter signs back, hearing people do not know what is being said. If the interpreter missed something they should again say "Your honor, the interpreter would like to clarify a portion of the witnesses statement."

[peacock43]

[Continuing] for processing into English. It's not leading or guiding an answer, you know? So I see correcting them on a nod the same way, just as a clarification. But whatever the correct method is, I'm good with it. I like your answer before and think that's a good idea ;)

[peacock43]

Thanks for feedback Superkdc79. I don't see any problem with that at all. Just as long as it's clarified. I guess I have just been comparing that situation to a "clarification." For example, say the witness is signing and the terp is voicing and the witness fingerspells a name and the terp doesn't catch it, so then, for clarification, the terps signs to the witness, "Sorry, can you spell that again?" It's just making sure that he or she has the accurate information [cont'd next msg]...

[Superkdc79]

As I said there are many other approaches to this situation, none of them including the interpreter talking to the witness on their own.

[Superkdc79]

However, any comment from the interpreter to the witness or to anyone else would not be on the record and that is not appropriate. The interpreter, if they would like to inform the witness that only signs are accepted, should simply say "Your honor, may the interpreter inform the witness that answers must be in the form of signs in order to be interpreted." Or some similar comment. Now when they infrom the witness it is on the record that they did so.

[Superkdc79]

I will only address this one in particular. The interpreter can inform the witness that he or she must answer with an actual sign, only after they have informed the court that they are doing so. As a court reporter you can see the importance of this. Everything that happens, no matter how small, must be on the record. Everything that the hearing people say is already on the record, everything that the Deaf witness says will be on the record after it is interpreted.

[Superkdc79]

Hi peacock, I said that was my last two cents, but this is an important point so I have to take back my change and give it again. HAHA. I agree that this has gotten alittle heated, and I can not apologize for GMAG. I do respect his or her passion though. There are several courses of action the interpreter can take.