Blinders in the form of willful ignorance are all too common with too many police, says Fairfax criminal lawyer

Blinders repeatedly arise with police — usually in the form of willful ignorance about language challenges, balance and other physical issues, and failure to follow the Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS) mandate to inspect a DUI suspect’s mouth for foreign substances at least twenty minutes before commencing post-arrest breathalyzing — and sometimes in the form of glaring errors that they do not pick up. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I worship at the altar of of police incident footage that reveals such police errors. Consequently, it is essential for your Virginia criminal defense attorney to obtain and thoroughly review the video evidence in your case, and to enable you to review the same material and to discuss it with your lawyer. If your attorney does not make such video footage available for you to watch, that is a red flag that must not be ignored.

Police blinders must not be excused in not accommodating the speaking of English as a second language

Deafening are the number of times I have heard a police officer — whether sincerly or arrogantly — proclaim with blinders in the courthouse: “The [English as a second language (ESL)] defendant understood me just fine on the street.” Really? You try seeing what it is like communicating with police in the stress even of your primarly language, let alone in your first language. Most elementary school students ultimately learn tens and thousands of English words. How does one expect the same accomplishment from every single ESL adult who comes to the United States working long hours, needing to create time to learn English? Even though I have clocked thousands of hours speaking my second language of French, the gap is very wide between my facility with French and English, and that is without adding such stressful encounters as police interrogation. Fairfax and the rest of Northern Virginia is teeming with a rich tapestry of people speaking over one hundred primarly languages. While some or many law enforcement officers (LEOs) may find it inconvenient to inquire sufficiently into a criminal suspect’s ability to understand, speak and write English — and even more inconvenient to seek and wait for an interpreter to arrive live or on a remote language line (which also involves paying the interprerter if not on the government payroll) — no other just alternative exists.

Even generally upstanding police officers can falter in dealing with ESL speakers

One day, I was working to soften up a police officer on my road to pursuing a wet reckless plea deal with the prosecutor where my Virginia DUI defense client had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) testing result well above the legal limit, by mentioning that he only asked whether my client (speaking English haltingly and with a very thik accent in the incent video) could understand English, without asking such important quetions as: What is your primary language? What is your educational level? To what extent did you attend school in the United States in English? How well can you read, write, speak and understand English? This police officer speaks respectfully and kindly on incident videos. He does not seem to have any reprehensible animus. I want other LEO’s to follow his respectful demeanor EXCEPT that I do not want police to do what he did on this incident video, which was to only ask two or three times if my client understands English, rather than probing with any of the foregoing questions. He even asked my client to count backwards for around seventeen numbers without even inquiring his ability to do that. In the courthouse, this police officer, with blinders, trotted out the old saw that my client spoke English just fine on the street — NOT. Whether or not because of my speaking French as a second language and Spanish as a third language makes me more attuned to when an ESL speaker is not doing very well with English with police, I pick up on it, and I will not let go of the matter when our defense demands it.

Talk sense to the prosecutor about police missteps in obtaining simple-to-obtain essential information

Here, with the room with the prosecutor being filled with the police officer in this case and other lawyers, I stepped aside with the prosecutor for this foregoing case, and told him outright that it is unacceptable for a police officer, with blinders, not to have inquired further about my client’s English language abilities and to simply overlook that. This prosecutor was born in the same country as my client and speaks his language. The prosecutor conceded that he had not yet watched the video and that I would need to wait around if I wanted him to see the video footage first. Time is a commodity that is among the reasons my clients pay me, and when well invested can yield great results. I encouraged the prosecutor to take his time to watch the video among all the many other cases he had, and offered to cue up the video for him to the key parts showing the absence of sufficient police inquiry into my client’s English speaking abilities. Within less than an hour, I had the wet reckless deal that I pursued from the get-go.

Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz speaks your language of relentlessly pursuing as much justice as possible for you in court against Virginia felony, misdemeanor and DUI cases. After we obtained a great outcome in court, my client told me his siblings urged him to hire Jon Katz, becuase cats have claws. While the foregoing is but a superstition, Jon is a decades-long martial arts practitioner who won’t let go until he obtains as much justice for his clients as possible. Your initial in-person confidential consulation with Jon Katz is free, by calling us at 703-383-1100, Info@KatzJustice.com, and (text) 571-406-7268.