Subject to interpretation–WTR

Worth the read is a pending Supreme Court petition that may have impact on military cases.

Issue: Whether the Confrontation Clause permits the prosecution to introduce an out-of-court, testimonial translation, without making the translator available for confrontation and cross-examination.

That is the issue in Ye v. United States, a history of which can be found at SCOTUSBlog.

As a military defense lawyer or military appeal lawyer I have had the case were documents or testimony is in a foreign language.  I have learned that even honest interpreters will not correctly interpret something.  The failure to correctly interpret can be based on cultural biases or taboos.  For this reason it is important to have your own interpreter assigned, and at times the opportunity to challenge the interpretation.

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