The Oklahoma Bar Journal December 2024

bond hearing, all parties would need to pause regularly for the interpreter. Some authorities already try to do this, but the pressure of a full docket some times takes over. Admittedly, too, consecutive interpretation doubles the length of all proceedings. It is tedious, yet it is ethical. A second option is a Zoom program that has two different audio channels – for example, one for English and one for Spanish. In the first channel, English-speaking parties can carry on their dialogue as normal, while in the second, the interpreter provides a simul taneous interpretation for Spanish speakers. When parties address the court in their native language, the interpreter switches to the English channel and interprets. Multi channel platforms are common in conference interpreting jobs. They could also work for the courts. Either method of online inter preting will help protect the rights of linguistic minorities to understand the legal proceedings that involve them. Either method will prevent courts in Oklahoma and around the nation from falling back into the old ways of sporadic interpretation that denied countless linguist minorities meaningful access to the U.S. legal system.

I cannot recall ever being asked to “stop interpreting.” However, there is one setting where the standard of completeness is sometimes forgotten: online. Since the pandemic, more and more courts have begun conduct ing bond hearings, arraignments, Department of Human Services meetings and other proceedings over Zoom or similar virtual meeting platforms. Many parties, including interpreters, like this option. Yet, unfortunately, the basic Zoom meeting does not allow for simultaneous interpretation. All too often, interpreters find them selves merely looking at faces on the screen when, in a courtroom, they would be whispering along side the linguistic minority. In turn, linguistic minorities find themselves in a similar sit uation as Rogelio Negrón in the 1960s, hearing only a babble of voices. Their right to understand what is going on around them at the same level as an English speaker is effectively breached. This challenge has two main solutions: First, we can use con secutive interpretation for all online proceedings involving linguistic minorities. Even when non-English speakers only listen in silence, as in the majority of a

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Following undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University, Taylor Cozzens earned a master’s degree in Spanish translation and

interpretation from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. He then moved to Norman to pursue doctoral studies at OU. For the past four years, he has worked part-time as a certified courtroom interpreter in central Oklahoma. ENDNOTES 1. See Roseann Dueñas González, Victoria F. Vasquez and Holly Mikkelson, Fundamentals of Court Interpretation: Theory, Policy, Practice (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1991), esp. 35-70. 2. “Confrontation – Right to a Translator ( United States ex rel. Negrón v. State of New York ),” St. John’s Law Review 46, No. 3 (March 1972): 468-470; See also “ United States ex Rel. Negron v. State of N.Y .,” Oct. 15, 1970, Casetext, https://bit.ly/4hrIu3L (accessed July 7, 2022). 3. “Opinion: State v. Natividad , Supreme Court of Arizona,” Casetext: Smarter Legal Research, https://casetext.com/case/state-v-natividad (accessed June 23, 2022). 4. Professional Standards and Ethics for California Court Interpreters , 5th Edition, (San Francisco: Judicial Council of California, 2008), 3; emphasis added. 5. Debora Charles, “Certified Courtroom Interpreters: A Quick Guide to Oklahoma’s Program,” OBJ , https://bit.ly/4hOzq9l (accessed Sept. 4, 2023).

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL