Lost In Translation

The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed a criminal conviction for first-degree murder notwithstanding translation errors on the part of a court-appointed interpreter that were discovered post-trial. The court reasoned:

    In this case, we conclude that some of the inaccuracies fundamentally altered the context of Sonny [the defendant]’s testimony.  However, there was overwhelming evidence of guilt for the jury to convict Sonny of robbery and first-degree murder, both with a deadly weapon; therefore, the court-appointed interpreter’s inaccuracies in the translation of Sonny’s trial testimony do not warrant a new trial because the errors were not prejudicial.

(Mike Frisch)