JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

NO HABLA INGLES....EVER

THE FOLLOWING POST IS INCORRECT. RUMPOLE BLEW IT. SEE THE POST ON 511/06. JUDGE FARINA HAS NOT ORDERED ANY INTERPRETER NOT TO INTERPRET FOR A DEFENDANT'S FAMILY. SORRY. WE BLEW IT.







THIS MAN HAS ALLEGEDLY SIGNED AN ORDER PROHIBITING...…GET READY FOR THIS...

INTERPRETERS FROM ( WE CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS CAN BE TRUE IN DADE COUNTY) .....

INTERPRETING!!!!!

We received this email alert today:

Rumpole, I have a mission for you. I was in court this morning and heard an interpreter tell the judge and an attorney that she could not interpret for the Defendant's mother. The interpreter said "As per the administrative order of Judge Farina, we cannot interpret for a Defendant's family." This is mind boggling. Something straight out of Broward.!!

Help!
This calls for a sarcastical, cynical, snide type of individual, so I turned my lonely eyes to you.
The Worlds Meanest Defense Attorney (by popular vote). WMDA

Dear WMDA, you are right. We are just the person for this job.

Rumpole to the rescue!!!
How in the name of Broward County could Judge Farina sign an administrative order prohibiting interpreters from interpreting for a Defendant's family?

Here is the scene:

A lawyer is in court.
The Defendant is in custody.
There are sensitive plea negotiations at sidebar.
The case gets reset.
The defendant has to surrender his passport, pay a large fine and restitution before the case gets settled and he can get out of jail.
The new court date is two weeks away.

The interpreter does her job in court and on the way out the attorney wants to tell his client's family the new court date and what needs to be done.

The attorney signals to the interpreter, who walks over and in Spanish asks the people if they are defendants.
They politely tell the interpreter that no, they are the family of the defendant who was just in court and they ask her what happened and when they have to be back in court.

The Interpreter reaches into her pocket, pulls out her reading glasses, clears her throat (ahhem) and loudly says for all to hear:

HEAR YE HEAR YE, BY ORDER OF THE CHIEF JUDGE OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, IN AND FOR DADE COUNTY, I CANNOT ANSWER ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS.

FURTHERMORE, BY ORDER OF THE CHIEF JUDGE, I CANNOT TRANSLATE ANY INSTRUCTIONS FROM YOUR ATTORNEY.
YOU MAY NOT BE TOLD THE NEXT COURT DATE.
YOU MAY NOT BE TOLD WHAT JUST HAPPENED.
WELCOME TO THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF DADE COUNTY.

I AM AUTHORIZED TO CONVEY TO YOU THAT THE CHIEF JUDGE, ON BEHALF OF ALL OF THE JUDGES OF THE ELEVENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT,
WISHES YOU A VERY NICE DAY.


RUMPOLE IS ON A MISSION TO HAVE THIS ORDER REVERSED. THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING. EVEN NORTH OF THE BORDER ALLOWS THEIR INTERPRETERS TO TELL THE DEFENDANT'S FAMILY WHAT JUST HAPPENED IN COURT. WHEN BROWARD TAKES THE LEAD IN RACIAL OR ETHNIC SENSITIVITY, THEN YOU KNOW SOMETHING IS WRONG.


FARINA ON THE HOT SEAT: DAY ONE.







Judge Dakis remembered:

Frank Abrams, late of Dade County, wrote in:

It is with great sadness that I've learned of the death of Judge Linda Dakis through a friend. What a great person she was. A fine individual with a warm smile whose common touch and sense of justice was second to none. Same with Henry Leyte Vidal. I live and practice law in North Carolina these days, and find it sad whenever someone I admired and respected passes away.

A wonderful person and a fine judge. A credit to the bench. Someone with a great sense of justice. Someone whose candor, honesty and forthright approach was one that many a sitting judge would do well to emulate. She will be missed.


See You In Court speaking broken Spanish to our client's family until you know who sees the light of day.

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have seen the admin. order or is this jsut a rumor. I've seen intrepters translating for family members all the time.

Anonymous said...

Rumpole,

I saw something occur very similar to this order last year in Judge Bloom's court. The way I understand the order, the interpreter can interpret for lawyer/client discussions and for court/witness/defendant situations, but can't interpret for nonparties. I understand how this can be extremely unfair and is probably an administrative order which does more harm than good, but let's at least give the rationale a fair hearing.
The basis for the order is that family members are not parties to the case and are not, strictly speaking, clients of the defense lawyer who need legal advice during the criminal proceeding. I'm guessing that the idea is to streamline the interpreters so as to keep them on track and lower costs in terms of expense and time. Unfair to defendants with family? Probably. Something to reexamine and reverse? I'll join you for that. But irrational? I think not.



your complaints on this matter, but I think you are misstating the order and how it works. Th

Anonymous said...

no comprende? incarce? dies anos? poricito........

Anonymous said...

Hey, I have an idea! Why don't those people learn fricken' english? While they're at it, why don't they also get their relatives to stop committing crimes! That way, they would not NEED to leech off the rest of us who DO speak english, and don't break the law!

Anonymous said...

AYYYYYY DIOS MIOOOOOOOO

Anonymous said...

I understand the need for efficeincy and that the Court does not need to provide translation for non-parties, but for the sake of economy, three seconds of translation can often save a lot of misunderstanding.

Are the courts really here for the people???

Anonymous said...

no se

Anonymous said...

I agree, this order on its face sounds like a joke, but come on we have what 7 interps for the entire building. The interps need to interp for the espanols who are too damn lazy to learn english and are trying to comprehend the charges against them. The interps do not have time to interp for the fifth cousin from some far away land.

I think it is pretty easy to learn english, especially after twenty years in the USA. We are not asking for spell check, just be able to communicate.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU 5:49 AND 7:32 POSTER!!!! COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER!

Anonymous said...

This is an outrage - how am I supposed to walk out of court and tell the interpreter "can you just tell them what happened," so I can go do something else.

in-cred-a-eeb-lay!

Anonymous said...

Is it true that on court appointed cases, you can purchase one of those handy dandy electronic language translators and get reimbursed by the JAC?

Anonymous said...

I'm a gringo atty and I dont burden the interpreters with my private business. They should interpret for court proceedings and conversations between attys and the defendants. We wait long enough for interpreters to bounce from court to court and the last thing I want them doing is wasting time with some lawyer chit chatting with a client's grandmother.

Anonymous said...

Taking the attitude that "they need
to learn English" is an example of
why the USA will soon enough crumble like all other historical
world powerhouses.

We need to be learning all the languages we possibly can to be able to compete in the 22nd century and beyond.

Go back to your cave Neanderthal.

Anonymous said...

I hope to be retired by the 22nd century ...

Anonymous said...

HEY FUCKER, IF THEY LEARNED ENGLISH AND KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON THEY WOULD REALIZE THAT THEY DIDN'T NEED YOUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY WERE TAKING A CASE O TRIAL. SO SHUT AND BENEFIT FROM THIS DON'T MAKE FUN OF THE ESPANNOLS. IF IT WEREN'T FROM THEM YOU WOULD BE MAKING A LIVING BY SEELING GOODS AT THE SWAP SHOP LIKE YOUR PARENTS DID.

Anonymous said...

THIS BLOG IS STARTING TO SUCK DICK. CHECK OUT THE RIDDLER'S BLOG.

Anonymous said...

AND BY THE WAY, FUCK FARINA AND THE BOAT HE CAME OVER IN.

Anonymous said...

Here is a better idea, hire Bilingual (English/Spanish) speaking lawyers who cost the same and Spanish challenged lawyers! WOW, what an idea. Why make lawyers take money (Bendita la leche pero maldita la vaca. No mi amigo.) they hate because people cannot speak el Ingles despues de 20 years in America? Si, you are correcto amigo. (Rump, por favor dile al Spanish media know about la situacion.) Gotta go and let the people know they need a bilingual attorney from now on to know what is happening. Que desgracia Dios Mio, Virgen maria, Santa Barbara y Chango... Radio Mambi, Halo?

We need a list of Bilingual Lawyers please. Start posting Señores y Señoras.

Anonymous said...

This rule is promted as a business move by the Hispanic Lawyers Association (HLA). Read about it in today's Herald. Either english-only attorneys will need to tag along privately paid interpreters, and thereby have to charge their clients more, and eventually lose clients because of this, or they will not be able to completely communicate with their clients, and thereby provide less quality representation, and in time lose them as clients. In both ways the HLA members will make out. The market will not change and move toward the non-HLA attorneys. Non-HLA attorneys need to learn spanish or they will lose out to the HLA over time.

Anonymous said...

Spanish sucks, but I really need the dinerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrro.

Anonymous said...

Spanish sucks, but I really need the dinerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrro.

Anonymous said...

Yo tambien.

Anonymous said...

Why is it okay to say that a non-HLA lawyer needs to learn Spanish to communicate to their clients, but when posters say that the clients need to learn English, everyone seems to accuse them of racism?

Anonymous said...

b/c you are a racist if you say anything about a "minority". and its clear as day that spanish speaking people's are a "minority" in dade county.

Anonymous said...

Farina is an idiot!

Anonymous said...

I saw with interest Don Cohn, but not Judge Ripyourheartout, Josie Velis but not Judge Murphy,and Cathy Parks (no opponent and undeclared as yet) at Thursday's candidate session. They were all sitting together. Don gave Parks a big bear hug. It's rather refreshing to see former rivals be friends. That's how a judicial race should be done and shows their integrity. But, I hear that Psrks is also friendly with Murphy and Ripyourheartout. Hell, who knows? Who doesn't like her? She's never burned any bridges Everyone likes her. Problem is that nobody in criminal knows her. Even so, rumor has it that if she goes in one of the open spots, she'll get it. I heard she's got tons of $$. Visit her mansion in Coral Gables and you'll believe it.

Anonymous said...

I personally know her. I think she'll put the $$ in. She's still got tons of name recognition from the last election which, in my humble opinion, she should've won. As we know, Judge Thomas (aka Tomas, which is the only reason he beat her!) isn't pulling his weight. The Rosa Parks thing won't hurt her either, and she knows it.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Farina isn't an idiot. He's just tired.

Anonymous said...

Parks I remember the name. who is she?

Anonymous said...

Nurse-attorney w 20 yrs experience goof head. Herald endorsed her.

Anonymous said...

o.k.

Anonymous said...

Catherine Parks should've gone against Judge Rothenburg, as she had initially decided to do, since he is extremely vulnerable. But I hear that she called her friend and political consultant, Bob Levy, who then phoned Rothenburg (just as she had anticipated) who then called his people who started calling her to ask if the rumor was true. It was. They begged her not to run against Judge R. She already had her papers filled out. But she agreed not to file against him and by so doing made big legal allies by agreeing to get out of his race The entire Probate Bar has now agreed to support her wherever she runs. Good trade-off, Parks.
Talk about good politics.

Anonymous said...

amazing, this politics

Anonymous said...

who'd a thought?

Anonymous said...

If she's ethical, and it sounds like she is, I'll vote for Catherine Parks. Hoy ye Hoy ye.l

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the Herald didn't give any mention to the Cohn/ Ripperyourheartout race or to the Murphy/Velis race. Shows what they know.

Anonymous said...

Parks was good friends with Judge Dakis, I hear. Shame she can't just take over her seat. Dakis would've liked that.

Anonymous said...

Parks was also sitting next to Robin Faber. What does that mean?

Anonymous said...

Probably nothing

Anonymous said...

Farina is not an idiot!

Anonymous said...

At least Parks isn't one of those stupid fucking hispanic bitches who run with no experience!

Anonymous said...

don't go there

Anonymous said...

Dear Ms. Parks
Stop mad posting....