New York courts announce plan to enhance language access

New York State Court officials have announced a strategic plan to enhance access to justice for litigants and other parties with limited English proficiency or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The plan comprises nearly seventy actions to be taken by the court system in eliminating barriers to justice for such court users, including:

• enhancing court interpreter recruitment, training and assessment; optimizing the use of interpreting resources;
• ensuring language access in other parts of the courthouse in addition to the courtroom;
• more effectively responding to the diverse needs of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community;
• raising public awareness about the services provided by the courts’ Office of Language Access; and
• ensuring language access in New York’s Town and Village Courts.

The full strategic plan is available here.

Can a nonlawyer judge send you to jail? U.S. Supreme Court is asked to decide

ABA Journal:

A cert petition pending before the U.S. Supreme Court shines a light on the power of some nonlawyer judges in the United States.

The cert petition asks whether a defendant’s due process rights are violated when he is tried by a nonlawyer judge with the power to send him to jail, and there is no opportunity for a new trial before a judge who is a lawyer.

The petition was filed on behalf of defendants Kelly Davis and Shane Sherman. They were tried before a nonlawyer judge in Montana who was previously a prevention specialist in a dependency program, and a cashier and meat wrapper at a grocery store.

A decision by the Supreme Court requiring judges to be lawyers in these cases could have broad fiscal and legal ramifications for New York State. In New York, judges of the town and village justice courts are not required to be attorneys. Such courts "have jurisdiction over a broad range of matters, including vehicle and traffic matters, small claims, evictions, civil matters and criminal offenses."