Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : Background: My friend was sexually assaulted last year and the case finally went on trial in November. Many of the people involved in this case are international students whose English is far from perfect. The court did hire an interpreter to help the jury, but at the time, I’m the only other perfectly bilingual person in the courtroom.
The victim testified as a witness, regular drill, then it was the officer who interviewed my friend (the victim), and then it was the other witnesses. The judge asked if they need an interpreter for help, and one by one they said yes. The first two testified smoothly, nothing went wrong. But the third witness started to speak really long sentences and hard technical words when answering questions, and I could see the interpreter starting to stumble. Finally, he made an error, which I considered significant- he misinterpreted “I can’t just say random stuff without knowing” to “I can’t lie to help the case”. Knowing the consequences of contempt of court, I stood up and yelled “your honor, the accurate interpretation would be...” upon finished, I was escorted outside and warned verbally by the court martial.
Obviously it’s not my job to “check” the interpreter, and I feel that I may have jeopardized the case. I felt extremely ashamed, and I still do. I apologized to my friend over and over again but the only thing she said was that I “should’ve been more calm”. She didn’t blame me at all and we’re still great friends. Eventually the jury convicted the defendant.
Tl;dr- interpreter didn’t interpreter a line accurately, I heckled to correct him. Got kicked outta the courtroom.