DRUG TRIAL SKIRTS LANGUAGE BARRIER

Interpreters Providing Running Translation For Hispanic Defendants

A technical challenge probably unprecedented in Evansville legal history
emerged in the weeks leading to a federal methamphetamine conspiracy trial,
set to go to the jury today. That's because three of the six defendants are
Hispanics who speak and understand little English.

Under the Constitution, criminal defendants are guaranteed the right to
understand trial proceedings - from first word to last word.

Final arguments were set to begin this morning after final instructions to
the jury by U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young.

The government alleges the six defendants were part of a criminal scheme to
funnel methamphetamine from Mexico to Southern Indiana through Miguel Angel
"Mike" Quintanilla of Dallas, the alleged international link for the
trafficking.

Quintanilla faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted as charged. The
other five defendants could face life in prison if convicted.

Defense attorneys called none of their six clients to testify and summoned
only one other witness - Drug Enforcement Administration agent Michael
Kress - before resting their case late Monday afternoon.

The prosecution rested its case shortly after the lunch recess.

Language barriers posed a tougher problem before the start of this trial,
compared with the challenges in the last notable bilingual case in federal
court here.

That was in 1998, when Californian Daniel Ramirez-Torres was tried on drug
charges. An interpreter was necessary during that two-day trial, but
courtroom deputy Dana Schuler needed only to schedule a competent
translator who could whisper the proceedings - in Spanish - into
Ramirez-Torres' ear.

But how do you handle not just one, but multiple defendants who don't know
English?

Schuler contacted Indiana's premier trial interpreter, Orencio Diaz, about
three months before the start of the trial. Diaz, 59, who left his native
Cuba at 19 just after the Castro takeover, had translated for
Ramirez-Torres' trial. Diaz suggested electronic interpretation equipment.

That's why courtroom visitors have noticed three men at the defense table -
defendants Leonel Moreno Jr., Alan Martino-Guzman and Abelardo Lalo-Mendoza
- - wearing headphones continuously while court is in session.

By contrast, Diaz and his assistant interpreter, Karina Reitz, virtually
blend into the woodwork while they whisper translation of the trial that
Moreno, Martino-Guzman and Lalo-Mendoza hear in their headsets.

"It's working very well," Diaz said of the system, which consists in part
of stereo headphone and personal monitor amplifiers.

"The first time I saw Orencio work, I said, 'Ohhh,'" Schuler marveled. "You
don't even know he's in the courtroom."

That's partly due to the discipline Diaz follows and teaches others to
observe. He said he tells trainees: "Think of yourself not as a person, but
as a machine . your job is to hear one language, and put it into another."

Diaz and Reitz, a native Argentinian and instructor in Spanish at Indiana
State University in Terre Haute, split up the translation load.

There definitely is need for two of us there," said Diaz, who is the chief
of Spanish interpreters for Marion County Superior Courts in Indianapolis.
"If I have to do it myself, I might lose my voice after two days."

Both Diaz and Reitz are simultaneous interpreters - they translate without
delay from one language to another. It's a skill Diaz said he developed
after two years on the job in Marion County courts. It means no
translation-based delays in the trial - even when a witness who speaks only
Spanish takes the stand.

Diaz and Reitz also interpret for clients and their attorneys. That is
important to defendants Martino-Guzman and Lalo-Mendoza. Moreno's lawyer,
Ed Malavenda of Indianapolis, is bilingual.

Diaz, who has been interpreting court proceedings, says the job requires
being fluent not in just two languages, but four.

"Few except attorneys learn the language of the court, but we had to learn
the English legal language and the Spanish legal language," Diaz explained.
"You've got to become acquainted with all the terms specific for legal
proceedings in both languages."

The demand for staff with his skills has mushroomed since Diaz started
court interpreting in 1984. Then he was employed by a local service agency
at the Hispanic Center in Indianapolis.

Now, Diaz says, he has one other full-time Spanish interpreter on his staff
and four part-timers "who work almost full-time."

Marion County, he said, has also seen trials involving native speakers of
Vietnamese, Korean and several Slavic languages who knew no English.

Also on trial in the Evansville methamphetamine trial are Quintanilla's
wife, Deneise, and Alfredo Ceballos.

Deneise Quintanilla, Moreno, Martino-Guzman, Lalo-Mendoza and Ceballos also
could get life terms if convicted.