Not Guilty by Reason of Limited English proficiency

What a great defense this judge just created. How about this:

Scene: Courthouse anywhere USA
Presiding: Idiot Liberal Judge with a Social Agenda

Defense Lawyer: "Yerrr Hooonnnorrr, myie client, Mr. ____, a citizen of Lower Yitterbia, was purportedly arrested for possession and transportation of an illegal substance, allegedly (whatever...cocaine, LSD, hash, etc.) found during an illegal search of da' vehicle he was riding."

"As you know, yeeeerrr hoooonnnoorrrr...myie client was just transporting dis vehicle for a friend and had absolutely no knowlege that the alleged illegal substances on the front seat were illegal, or even what they were."

My client, being a citizen of a foreign state, does not "read, write, speak, comprehend, know about, think in, or in any way, shape or form had the time, opportunity or ability to learn the English language. He speaks a dialect of Yitterbium known only in his small community. "

"He was not given his Miranda rights in Yitterbium and therefore, consented to a search of the vehcile under pressure from the jack booted thugs that stopped and intimidated and accused him."

Prosecution: "Your honor, defendant has a Ph.D. in Yitterbium and is employed as a nuclear physicist in that country. He is illegally here."

Defense Attorney: "Objection, yeeerrr hooonnnorrr! All of that is irrelevant as to whether or not he had the chance to know of the charges against him before the police searched his vehicle. I move for a dismissal on his constitutional right to be informed in a language of his peers."

Idiot Liberal Judge: (To the prosecutor): "Why did you bring these obviously spurious charges? Can't you see the man can't speak, read, understand, interpret, know or do anything in Engish? I'm dismissing this case on the ground that defendant didn't know English and wasn't given his Miranda rights in Yitterbium. Further, I want you, the officers involved and the police chief to write a letter of apology to the defendant. I want the police officer who purported to arrest the defendant investigated by the office of internal affairs, I want the officer retrained and put through a "sensitivity" class."

"Mr. Defendant, you sincere apologies to you for this inconvenience. You might also want to consider filing a civil rights suit against these officers."

"Case dismissed."

How about this twist?

Defense Lawyer: "As you know, yeeeerrr hoooonnnoorrrr...myie client violated no law in his native country of Lower Yitterbia, his act of transporting a 'controled substance' there is peeeerfectly legal."

Prosecution: "Your honor, I object. There are no vehicles in Lower Yitterbia, much less paved roads, and..."

Idiot Liberal Judge: (To the prosecutor): "Overuled! Son, this case is dismissed, you're free to go."

Client, to reporters: "Hot doodly damun! I sure put one over on that idiot of a judge!"

This article is full of bull. Read the actual opinion rendered by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. The appeals court barely considered that Acosta did not speak English. Pennsylvania law says that consent to search must be a "product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice--not the result of of duress or coercion, express or implied, or a will overborne." The court looked other cases where the suspects were informed that they had the right to refuse consent to the search. In this case they said there was nothing to indicate that Acosta had any idea he could refuse the search. He was being detained an had been for something like 45 minutes. There were several police cars there. The police were keeping his insurance and registration documents. There was nothing there to indicate that he was free to go. He had not been advised of his Miranda rights prior to the search. The court made very little mention of the fact that he did not speak very much English and if anything only considered it as one small factor in the totality of the circumstances.

In most states the way these vehicle stops work is that they ask you for consent to search and if you say no they just run the dogs around your car and when the dogs alert (or when the officer says the dog alerts) they have probable cause to search without consent. There have been various steps taken by various courts to try to keep some restraints on police under these circumstances because after all, what the police are doing here is making an end around the 4th Amendment prohibition against warrantless searches. So to minimize the intrusion, courts have been doing things like limiting the amount of time a person can be forced to wait for the dogs to get here and it appears that in Pennsylvania now they are pressuring the police to at least advise people that they have the right actually to refuse consent, and to someone standing there with several cops breathing down his neck ordering him to do this and that it must not feel like he has many rights.

Whoever wrote the article that is the subject of this thread is not a very honest person. There are plenty of legitimate things to complain about when it comes to aliens. There is absolutely no need to make things up and misrepresent the truth.

If anyone wants to read the court's opinion they may find it here: http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/e02004_02.pdf

Not only is the situation more complex than the article infers, the author flat out misrepresents the court's reasoning for ruling the way it did. This is beyond just being a mistake. The article is pure dishonest propaganda by Rob Toonkel.

There is enough out there to complain about without having to misrepresent the truth and just plain make things up. I'd never seen this usenglish.org website or heard of Rob Toonkel, but I sure will be steering clear of anything they put out in the future.

I realize that this thread is over two weeks old, but I have to clear some things up. U.S. English only deals with language issues. Therefore any other element of the case has little to do with them – and language did play a role in the outcome of the case. According to an AP article on January 27, 2004, “A county judge had ruled that evidence of the drugs found hidden in a car during a traffic stop was not admissible because the Spanish-speaking driver was questioned in English and did not give permission for a search of the vehicle.”

U.S. English, Inc. has been the nation’s leader in official English legislation since it was founded in 1983. Without U.S. English, there would not be twenty-seven states with English designated as their official language. Without U.S. English there wouldn’t even be an official English movement. U.S. English has always been a credible organization and those who understand the importance of a common language respect the organization and value their efforts.

Perhaps the author from US English took the lead of the AP on this and neglected to read the case. Regardless of who it was who misstated the facts, the facts were misstated. Read the case and see for yourself.

The PDF is not loading. Here it is in HTML: http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:26VeVTApdVAJ:www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/e02004_02.pdf+Superior+Court+of+Pennsylvania+acosta&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper. Reporters often use a certain amount of "license" to make stories more interesting. I know. I'm a lawyer and I have been misquoted in newspapers several times and I've seen reporters totally misrepresent the facts of cases just to make a story worthy of front page or near front page coverage. Sometimes perhaps it's just because they don't understand the law. Usually though they don't care much about facts or law, they just want a good story.

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