Hearing impaired person's DWI in Texas
On January 14, 2009, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas handed down an interesting and lengthy opinion about a Texas DWI case in which the defendant claimed to be deaf. The opinion and concurrence deal with several issues, the main of which is the defendant's ability to participate in and understand the proceedings.
"Understanding" in DWI cases involves a suspension of disbelief, at least at the time of the stop. If the facts are to be believed, this defendant was over two times the legal limit and legally deaf. It would be a miracle if she were to understand anything at all during her processing. Then there's the trial, in which she participated and even testified, and then claimed not to understand because a sign language interpreter was used instead of an assisted listening device.
Here are some excerpts from the main opinion, followed by more comments:
Appellant filed a motion to suppress the breath test results, arguing that she did not understand that she had the right to refuse a breath test. At a pretrial hearing, appellant testified, through a certified American Sign Language interpreter, that she was unable to communicate with the arresting officer and that she took the breath test only because she "thought it was a requirement." She said that she could not understand the papers she was given to read, and she could not read the officer's lips because he had a mustache. The judge then asked her some questions that she answered coherently. She said that she was a high-school graduate, she has a driver's license, and she was enrolled in Blinn College, (footnote omitted) but she had not learned how to read and write very well. The court reporter's record reveals that appellant gave several audible responses before the interpreter translated.
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Deputy Woodrick then testified about the arrest. He said that it was hard to communicate with appellant. "The way I communicated with her was I would write notes, she would read the notes, and then she would answer my questions" orally. She indicated that she understood his questions, and her verbal answers were "[a]bsolutely" appropriate. The deputy said that appellant indicated that she understood the lan-guage in the DIC-24 form as well as her Miranda rights.
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When the trial judge asked Deputy Woodrick about the circumstances of the accident, appellant clarified one of the deputy's answers:
Witness: Well, part of the damage to the other vehicle. She hit the vehicle on the left corner and caused it to spin, and it slammed into a tree because--
Judge: Okay.
Appellant: I did not hit the tree.
Witness: She didn't hit the tree. The other vehicle hit the tree.
The station-house video was played, and the interpreter said that appellant signed "I don't understand" on the video five or six times.
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It is well settled that if a defendant cannot hear or does not speak English well enough to understand the trial proceedings or communicate with counsel, fundamental fairness and due process of law require that an interpreter be provided to trans-late between English and the accused's own language. (footnote omitted) Decisions regarding adequate interpretive services depend upon a potpourri of factors, including the defendant's understanding of the English language and the complexity of the pertinent law and its procedures, and the testimony. Therefore, the trial judge--having the defendant in his presence, observing his level of comprehension, and asking him questions, has wide discretion in determining the adequacy of interpretive services. (footnote omitted) The question on appeal is not whether the "best" means of interpretive services were employed, but whether the services that were actually employed were constitutionally adequate such that the defendant could understand and participate in the proceedings.
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The Constitution does not ... guarantee every defendant a perfect trial. The rights vouchsafed are practical, reasonable rights rather than ideal concepts of communication, and even these pragmatic rights may not be exercised without limit. The Constitution does not require that every defendant comprehend the English language with the precision of a Rhodes Scholar or appreciate the nuances of a wit-ness' expressions or behavior with the skill of a doctor of psychology. Nor may a defendant press the exercise of his right to the point at which he disrupts the public's right to an orderly trial.
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..........This was not a complicated case, it was a simple DWI trial. The level of linguistic competency necessary to participate in one's defense is directly related to the complexity, both factually and legally, of the case. Here, the facts and the law were not complicated: There was no traffic stop to contest, as appellant caused an accident and remained at the scene, exchanging information with the accident victim. The issue in this case was whether appellant could communicate with Deputy Woodrick well enough to understand her Miranda rights and her right to refuse to give a breath sample.
The same is true here. We might agree that a deaf-relay interpreter would have been "the best" service provider. But here, where the record shows that appellant responded coherently and cogently to questions asked (sometimes verbally, before the translation), graduated from high school and was admitted to a college (although she failed her college courses), could understand sufficient English to obtain a driver's license, could communicate sufficiently with her accident victim to exchange pertinent information, and could follow Deputy Woodrick's instructions, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellant's motion for new trial.
This is not an instance in which the trial judge did not understand or appreciate the defendant's communication problem. The record is replete with instances in which both the pretrial and trial judges stopped the proceedings to inquire into appellant's understanding, to provide additional resources and services, and to of-fer additional time for appellant to consult with her attorney and her interpreters.
In this case, the record reflects that appellant understood the proceedings well enough to assist in her own defense; moreover, whatever communication difficulties might have existed between appellant and her trial counsel were not apparent in the record. The record reflects that the defense thoroughly and competently challenged every aspect of the State's case. Appellant failed to set out, at the motion for new trial hearing, any specific instances in which (1) she failed to understand crucial testimony during the trial, or (2) she was not able to communicate adequately with her counsel during the trial or how either of those failures led to a fundamentally unfair trial and a violation of her due-process rights . (footnote omitted) Although the court of appeals may be right that a deaf-relay interpreter could have been "the best" solution to appellant's lack of hearing, it erred in concluding that the three interpreters that the trial judge did use were constitutionally in-sufficient to ensure her due process rights.
Additional comments: Notice how the opinion basically says that DWI cases are simple to understand and don't require a complex background or education to appreciate. In my opinion this is absolutely false. DUI cases are complex, and in the criminal justice system, rivaled in nuance and scientific detail only by DNA cases. It is this lack of understanding of the issues in DUI cases from the bench that often leads to the perception that these cases are cut and dry, open and shut. Until the bench appreciates how complex and difficult DWI cases can be, what hope do we have of the pubic and the jury pool realizing this?
It is the DUI defense lawyer's job to educate both the Judge and Jury, and sometimes the prosecutor as well on issues that might seem simple, but in fact are anything but.
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