Thanks to Wisconsin Badgers Basketball last Friday, we did not have a Your News Now last week–so I did My Two Cents on Wednesday evening instead. It’s unfortunate, because I would have been even more worked up than usual due to one of the most frustrating experiences that I’ve had in media coverage in some time.
Last Friday, the top story in the state was the sentencing hearing for a Neenah man that killed four siblings in a drunk driving crash just a couple of weeks before Christmas of 2023 near Weyauwega. The hearing was scheduled to start at 9:00 am and last about three hours. It instead turned into a seven-hour marathon that featured heated exchanges between the judge and attorneys–and shouted accusations from the gallery. And it was all due to a pair of accommodations that when lawmakers first drafted them likely didn’t seem like that would have as big an impact as they do.
For starters, the siblings killed in the crash had all come to the United States from Ecuador with their mother when she married an American citizen. It is likely that since then, she has learned some English–but perhaps not enough to understand everything within the American court system, and everything that someone testifying in court may say. Therefore, the court provided an English-to-Spanish (and Spanish-to English) interpreter. Actually, they provided two translators, as it could be considered a fairly heavy load for just one person to translate everything said in court for three hours. So the interpreters informed the court that they would be switching off every 15-minutes or so (and then had to be translated).
This might be a good time to bring up that I thought that interpreter services were required under the state’s Victims Rights Law (more on that in a moment)–but it turns out that is not listed among the court requirements under that act. So I went to the rules governing interpreter services for courts in general and found that it is only required when the defendant ” speaks only, or as a primary language, something other than English”. In last week’s hearing, the defendant spoke perfect English–so why the interpretation was needed, I’m not really sure.
So, the hearing gets underway and almost immediately one of the interpreters interrupts (via webcam, as she was not in the courtroom itself) asking everyone to slow down, speak directly into the microphones, and to limit their comments to just two sentences at a time so that she and the other interpreter would be able to keep up (and then translated that). Now, I want you to think about your Thanksgiving family dinner yesterday and image all of the conversation being limited to two sentence chunks so someone not even in the room can repeat what you just said word-for-word. Would you be able to maintain your train of thought during that process? Do you think you could be as compelling in your arguments over whether stuffing should be made with just bread or meat? Would you get frustrated that when you were asked a question you couldn’t answer immediately and had to wait for someone else to stop talking in a language you don’t understand?
This stop and start process continues for several hours, as the mother of the victims reads a 15-minute statement to the court–which had to be translated from Spanish to English–turning it into a 30-minute statement. Then the lone surviving brother addressed the court, in English, from Ecuador for another 15-minutes, which was also doubled to half-an-hour due to translation, then a cousin living in the U-S addresses the court in English–which still needed to be translated to Spanish–adding another 20-minutes to the proceedings–followed by a 20-minute statement from the step-father of the victims which gets doubled to nearly 45-minutes due to translation.
It was during this time, that a member of the gallery behind the victims’ family shouted out asking Judge Raymond Huber if he was even awake and paying attention to what is being said (which had to be translated). The judge was not pictured on the live-stream of the hearing from the courtroom that I was watching, so I don’t know if perhaps he had his eyes closed or his head was drooping like it does when you are trying to fight off sleep. The judge angrily responded that he most certainly was awake and could hear everything going on (which then had to be translated).
We need to take another sidetrack here to explain why all of these folks are allowed to speak at the hearing in the first place. Under the Victims Rights Law, not just those directly affected by a crime get to address the court at any and all steps of the legal process–so too do those that prosecutors feel were indirectly affected. And few, if any, limits are placed on those “statements”. That has led sentencing hearings to go from arguments for proper punishment for the defendant into full-on memorial services in the cases involving death.
Shortly after the law went into effect, I covered a murder sentencing hearing in Winnebago County Court that featured a reading of the victim’s favorite poems, a computer slide show featuring pictures of her with her family and friends, and the playing of a C-D featuring some of her favorite songs. I’d point out it wasn’t the victim herself singing the songs–it was literally just a mixtape that the court had to sit through. None of these dog and pony shows are intended to present arguments to the judge for specific sentencing recommendations–which is why the hearing is being held.
As last Friday’s hearing approached 12:30–a half hour past the time it was scheduled to wrap up–Judge Huber asked the prosecutor how much longer it would take to complete her case–mentioning that he had a three-hour probate hearing scheduled for his courtroom that afternoon that was scheduled to start at 2:00 (which then had to be translated). The prosecutor informed him that she still had to show a video produced by the family that would run about ten minutes and then she would present her sentencing arguments (which then had to be translated). The defense then revealed that they planned to call two witnesses when it was their turn (which had to be translated). Doing some quick math, that was going to add at least another two hours to the proceedings.
That’s when one of the interpreters interjected that she thought the hearing was only going to go three hours as well–and that she was scheduled to work another case at 1:00–and would not be available to translate again until 2:30 (which then had to be translated). That’s when Judge Huber angrily called a recess–one, to give his clerks a break, and two, to find another translator on short notice (which had to be translated). So it was decided to reconvene at 1:30 (which then had to be translated).
At 1:30, as the hearing resumed, a new translator joined the hearing by Zoom and told everyone in no uncertain terms that just two sentences would be allowed at a time–and that everyone needed to speak slowly and clearly into the microphones so he could hear–which he then had to translate into Spanish. I give him credit though, he held to those rules, as several times he interrupted the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the witnesses for the defense, and the judge himself to start translating the last two sentences–scolding those in the courtroom for not following the rules (and then translating his admonishments into Spanish as well).
Several times Judge Huber reminded everyone that he had a three-hour probate hearing that had to be held after this sentencing and that things needed to move along (which had to be translated). When the prosecutor objected to a defense witness testifying about his thoughts on the pre-sentence investigation conducted by the Department of Corrections (which had to be translated), Judge Huber denied it–pointing out pointedly that the State took more than five hours to present their side–and the defense would get their fair time as well (which had to be translated). Finally, at nearly 4:00–seven hours after the hearing started–Judge Huber finally handed down his sentence of nearly 40-years in prison (which had to be translated).
If they actually started that three-hour probate hearing after that, I do not know. But if they did, it likely came at a cost for Waupaca County taxpayers–as the clerks, bailiffs, and other courthouse staff would have had to put in at least two hours of overtime–and knowing attorneys, the clients involved in that hearing would have been charged for every minute the lawyers sat in the hallway waiting for the preceding sentencing hearing to wrap up.
I was reminded after that hearing of the first time I realized the expense that can be levied on the general public to accommodate as few as one person under the law. In my first radio job in Marinette, I covered school board meetings where the district was made to install an elevator in it’s high school library. A girl requiring use of a wheelchair to get around was an 8th grader at the time. Her family let the district know that they believed the library violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, as the second floor of the facility was not accessible.
Like many public buildings constructed in the 1960’s or 70’s, Marinette High School was a model of inefficiency. In the classroom portion of the building, there was an elevator allowing a person in a wheelchair to get to the second level. But the library featured just a wide, winding staircase to get to the second level–which was not connected to the second floor in the rest of the building. The district offered to have librarians work with the student to determine what books she might need–and if they were on the second level, they would go up and collect them for her. But that was not acceptable to the family–and lawyers were called in.
When the idea of moving all of the books to the first level was brought up, the library staff protested–saying it would make the room “too crowded” and take away the “creative spaces” that students “needed to learn”. So eventually, the School Board broke down and approved spending several hundred thousand dollars to install an elevator in the library.
One of the best meetings I ever had to cover came later that summer, as after a bid process was held, a contractor was hired, subcontractors were brought in, and construction was started on the elevator, the superintendent informed the board that the family of the student in the wheelchair had moved out of the Marinette School District. As this was an era before everyone lived in fear of offending anyone with their comments and being honest in your expression was still welcomed, the school board members absolutely went off on that family and the cost they had placed upon the taxpayers. The superintendent tried to put a positive spin on the situation, pointing out that someday someone needing that elevators might actually attend Marinette High School–and the school would be ready. He did not point out the expense of maintenance and repair for a machine that would not be used (except for testing and servicing) for years.
While we as a society should not adopt a position of “too bad, so sad” when it comes to accommodation of all people to our public institutions. But as some point, we do have to consider if the expense to everyone else equals the benefit provided to so few.
