Durham resident Monica Jacobs testified that a pickup truck being driven by Francisco Pereyra hit her car at an intersection in August. When Pereyra exited his car, he showed signs of inebriation.
Defense attorneys in Durham claimed that, as a Spanish-speaker, Pereyra was treated unjustly in the case involving the issue of driving while intoxicated because police did not successfully communicate his rights. The defense moved to have some evidence-specifically breath tests-disregarded in the trial.
Although the successful motion ultimately had little effect on the trial's result-District Court Judge Richard Chaney threw out the breath tests but upheld a conviction-some legal officials still question the repercussions of such a ruling.
In recent years similar cases have appeared in courts across North Carolina, but the court system has failed to establish a precedent in handling them.
Although the issue only pertains to DWI cases, it is just one example of the problems resulting from a language barrier facing a burgeoning Latino community.
"There is a conceptual difference between statutory rights and constitutional rights," Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong said. "In a DWI case, we're talking about something different."
Nifong explained that the rights associated with a DWI case are not constitutionally granted, unlike the now famous Miranda warnings implemented by the Supreme Court that require police to read suspects their rights before they are questioned.
"The courts have required that the [Miranda] warnings be given in a manner that the person understands them, including that they be in a language they understand," said John Rubin of the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Unlike the Miranda warnings, however, DWI cases fall under the jurisdiction of N.C. General Statute 20-16.2. The law, which involves the concept of "implied consent," requires that people be given notice of their right to refuse a breath test but warns that such a decision could also involve criminal charges.
As a result, the issue of language in DWI cases is less clear, Rubin said.
"I suppose the prosecution's argument is that the statute does not require that the notice be given in any language other than English," he said. "But the counter argument is that the notice does not effectively communicate the person's rights unless it's in a language that they understand."
Nifong said that some judges also have not been distinguishing between constitutional and state rights. He explained that district court judges in other counties have ruled differently on similar issues, which has caused confusion on the interpretation of the law. Nifong added that if more judges start throwing out evidence on a basis of the language barrier, even more confusion will arise.
"If we develop a local policy [for notifications in Spanish], then we run into an equal protection argument if we don't do the same for the people who aren't Hispanic and aren't English-speaking," he said.
With the growing size of the Latino population in North Carolina, public resources-including those within police departments-have begun to address the needs of a Spanish-speaking community.
Nifong said, however, that no across-the-board change will occur-regardless of court decisions-until a change is made to the legal code itself.
"The place to effectuate [a change] is not in the individual district court room, which applies to only cases before that judge," he said. "The place to do that would be in the legislature, which is where the law applies to everyone."
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