Kane public defender wants Spanish-speaking help

The Kane County public defender is looking for a way to get more Spanish-speaking help in her office.

Doing so, she believes, would reduce the amount of time some inmates spend in the county jail as opposed to being in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Kelli Childress brought the matter up to the county board’s judicial and public safety committee Friday.

Her office has two attorneys who speak Spanish. None of the support staff, such as investigators and secretaries, speak the language.

That means for interviewing witnesses, translating documents and consulting with clients, the office has to rely on those two attorneys or borrow a courtroom interpreter from court services.

The problem is scheduling. Her two attorneys are assigned to two courtrooms, so they aren’t available when court is in session. And arranging a time for the attorneys or the court interpreters to meet with clients or witnesses is difficult, especially if a client is in jail. A corrections officer has to escort the attorneys and interpreters in the jail, and due to jail staffing concerns, the sheriff’s office has asked attorneys to consolidate visits to before 10:15 a.m., between 1:30 and 2:15 p.m., and after 3:30 p.m., Childress said. But court is in session at least during the first two time periods, so the attorneys and interpreters may not be available.

Childress thinks this leads to delays in arranging plea deals, requiring court continuances that are often several weeks long. That means the client stays in the jail longer, on the county’s dime. Once a person is sentenced to prison, the cost of incarcerating them is the responsibility of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Furthermore, it isn’t a good use of a lawyer’s time to translate conversations, documents or transcripts for other lawyers’ cases, she said.

Childress is collecting data to see how many court hearings have been delayed due to a lack of interpretation, as well as how much time those two lawyers are spending on interpretive work. She hopes the data would show that cost savings from reduced jail expenditures, and increased jail revenue from being able to rent out those jail spaces to the U.S. Marshal Service and other agencies, would offset the cost of hiring a Spanish-speaking support worker. No such position is in her budget now.

County board member Jim Mitchell suggested Childress train some of her existing workers to speak “conversational” Spanish, saying money from the riverboat casino fund could be used. Corrections officers have studied conversational Spanish, he said. Childress said she would look into that, too.

Childress said she is also looking for grant money to hire an attorney who has expertise in immigration issues to sufficiently advise clients about the effect of their criminal prosecution on their immigration status.