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32 Geo. Mason U. C.R. L.J. 299 (2021-2022)
Judicial Discretion in the Court Interpreters Act: Our Century-Old Remedy to a Modern LEP American Issue

handle is hein.journals/gmcvr32 and id is 311 raw text is: JUDICIAL DISCRETION IN THE COURT INTERPRETERS ACT: OUR CENTURY-OLD REMEDY TO A MODERN LEP AMERICAN ISSUE Andrew Carter* INTRODUCTION If you were tasked with determining which criminal defendants are entitled to a court interpreter, where would you start? The first obvious answer is that if a defendant does not speak English, he or she should receive an interpreter. Or maybe it would be reasonable to say that any defendant who is not fluent in English, or for whom English is not a first language, should also receive a translator. The legal world is a complicated and nuanced one, after all. Even fluency in English is hardly an assurance of understanding the modern legal landscape.1 It is no secret that the American people have become increas- ingly dissatisfied with how the country treats citizens of various ethnic and immigrant backgrounds.2 More than seventy-five percent of the American population sees immigration overall in a positive light-the highest rate of public approval in the last twenty years.3 This growing positivity towards immigrant Americans necessitates discussion on those individuals' rights. * George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, J.D. expected, 2022. 1 See Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. Int'l Sales Corp., 190 F. Supp. 116, 121 (S.D.N.Y. 1960) (in which the outcome of a private lawsuit between meat suppliers hinged on the two parties' differing definitions of the word chicken); see also Michael Rozansky, Americans Are Poorly Informed About Basic Constitutional Provisions, ANNENBERG PUB. POL'Y CTR., (Sept. 12, 2017), https://cdn.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Civics-sur- vey-Sept-2017-complete.pdf (referring to a survey in which more than a third of interviewed United States citizens could not name a single protection enumerated in the First Amendment). 2 See Race Relations, GALLUP (2021), https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx (referring to the statistics that in June-July 2020, American adults are on average eighteen per- cent less satisfied with how Hispanic Americans are treated, twenty percent less satisfied with how Asian Americans are treated, and eleven percent less satisfied with how immigrants are treated than in June-July 2013). 3 See Ed Lowther, US Election 2020: Trump's Impact on Immigration - in Seven Charts, BBC NEWS, (Oct. 21, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54638643. 299

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