The state’s burgeoning immigrant population has prompted changes in how and when Iowa judges appoint interpreters in court proceedings involving people with limited English-language proficiency.

John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas, who heads the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs, said the new rules requiring judges to appoint certified foreign-language interpreters when they’re available will help ensure justice for a wave of Iowa immigrants. “If the people charged cannot communicate with the court and get themselves understood, the whole system falls apart,” he said.

John Goerdt, the judicial planner for the Iowa Supreme Court who guided a 17-member commission of judges, lawyers, court officials, and minority group and civil-rights advocates that recommended new standards to the court, feels passionately about the issue as well.

“I put myself in the shoes of those who come into this country and can’t speak the language,” he said. “I worry about whether getting appropriate interpreting services and the effect it might have on their lives [if they’re not provided]. It’s possible – we don’t know this has happened, but it’s possible – that a misunderstanding through poor interpreting services causes someone to go to jail when they shouldn’t go to jail or to get deported as an immigration consequence.”

Currently about 30 million people of Hispanic origin live in the United States, and the U.S. Census Bureau expects that number to double to 60 million by 2025 and to 96.5 million by 2050. In Iowa, the number of people of Hispanic origin grew from 32,650 in 1990 to 82,475 in 2000, a 153 percent increase. Iowa’s Asian population also increased 46 percent during that period, and Bosnian and Sudanese immigrants have moved into the state in large numbers, though there are no Census Bureau data on their numbers.

Iowa judges surveyed for the advisory group’s 2001 report said that in the previous five years, demand for Spanish-speaking interpreters increased by an average of 57 percent statewide, with demand as high as 70 percent in some judicial districts with large Latino populations. From 1997 through 2000, the Iowa Division of Inspections and Appeals, which pays for interpreters for indigent defendants, reported that costs for court-appointed interpreters increased 71 percent to $366,016.

The commission Goerdt oversaw made its recommendation in fall 2001 and the Iowa Legislature approved a bill implementing them in 2004, but did not identify a funding source. Though no funding existed and the Iowa court system remains in a budget crisis, the judiciary adopted the new rules in November.

“It was simply a case that the Supreme Court realized they couldn’t let this languish and we really needed to move forward on this,” Goerdt said. “The rules have taken us one step forward in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.”

Judges are now required to appoint a certified interpreter if one is available. The problem, Goerdt said, is “they virtually never are” with only two certified Spanish language court interpreters in Iowa, one of whom works primarily for federal courts in Des Moines. If a certified interpreter is not available, the court looks at the state-sanctioned roster of court interpreters, a list of about 75 interpreters who have passed an examination consisting of 25 multiple choice questions on professional conduct and have attended state-sponsored orientation programs. Failing that, judges may appoint an interpreter they determine to be reasonably competent, the same standard that existed before the new rules and a likely possibility in many rural counties, Goerdt said.

The code of professional conduct familiarizes interpreters with conflicts of interest they may not have recognized. Before the new rules were adopted, it was common for family members who have lived in the United States longer and are more proficient in English to interpret for a relative involved in a court proceeding, Goerdt said.

“The person who’s been here for a few years might have a better sense of what the court expects, what the court wants to hear,” he said. “They might bias the interpretation so it sounds like what the court wants to hear. It’s a natural thing, but we really shouldn’t have people who have conflicts of interest. When we go over these things with interpreters for the first time, we see little light bulbs going off. While they have done interpreting before, they hadn’t thought about these things.”

A word-for-word interpretation isn’t always possible, and interpreters must walk a fine line between interpreting and putting what was said in context. Lori Chesser, an attorney with Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts who specializes in immigration law and frequently works with non-English-speaking clients, said even American-born citizens have difficulty understanding certain legal terms and concepts.

“You can get people who speak the other language and English to translate the words, but the concept doesn’t always align with the words in the court context,” she said. “Making people understand what is said, even when translated into their own language, is another story.”

Illustrating that, a Spanish interpreter serving on the Supreme Court’s advisory panel related a story of a Hispanic defendant who had been charged with kidnapping after taking his child from the mother, who had been granted custody in their divorce. An interpreter translated the charge of “kidnapping” as “child sleeping,” and the defendant signed a guilty plea and was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. Upon discovery of the error in interpretation, the attorney successfully moved to vacate the sentence.

The state roster of interpreters is primarily made up on interpreters who speak Spanish, but interpreters also are available for Laotian, Vietnamese, Taidam, Arabic, Assyrian, Serbo-Bosnian, Croatian, Chinese, French, Italian, Nuer, Russian, Ukranian and Polish. More interpreters are needed, and the state is considering incentives to encourage interpreters to gain certification, a process that requires them to pass a rigorous test.

The cost to train and certify interpreters is estimated at $103,470 for this fiscal year and $86,641 for fiscal 2007.