Well.. . a h . . .: Hesitations and Hedges as an Influence on Jurors’

Decisions’

NORMA A. MENWZA, HARMON M. HOSCH? BRUCE J. PONDER, AND VICTOR CARRILLO University of Texas at El Paso

Hispanic jurors’ verdicts and whether these decisions were related to jurors’ judgments of the credibility of the witness were the focus of this experiment. A prosecution witness tes- tified in English or in Spanish with interpretation in English. Witnesses’ speaking style systematically included hedges and hesitations or did not. Guilty verdicts were indepen- dent of language of testimony. Within Spanish-interpreted conditions, jurors convicted the defendant 47% of the time in the absence of hedges and hesitations. When he hedged and hesitated. they convicted 34% of the time. This effect was complicated by a reliable Wit- ness Hesitation x Juror Language Dominance interaction. These results are interpreted in the context of the courtroom impact of non-English-speaking witnesses and the impact of interpretation.

In multilingual environments, many trials are conducted with courtroom interpretation of testimony. For example, as the Spanish-speaking population of the United States has increased, Spanish-English interpretation is critical to the adjudication of many Hispanic defendants. Linguists have studied the influence of the quality of interpretation on the impressions of witnesses, but data are very limited with respect to the impact of interpreted testimony on the outcome of trials. Of particular interest is the influence of interpretation on jurors’ decision

‘Norma A. Mendoza is now at the University of Arkansas and Victor Canillo is at the University of Texas at Austin. This research was supported by a grant from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. We thank Judge Scott Segall. and attorneys Israel P a m and Matthew Dekoatz, Interpreter Francis Diaz, Officer Al Velarde of the El Paso Police Department, and witness John Michael Goeldner for their assistance in producing the trial. Arturo Vasquez, David Flores, and the staff of the University of Texas at El Paso News and Publications Department were essential in pro- ducing the videotapes. Christina Apodaca. Melissa Lazarin, Alan St. Pierre, James Schutte. and John Valeno assisted in data collection. We thank Richard Ford and Jon Amastae and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

2Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Harmon M. Hosch. Center for Law and Human Behavior, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0553. e-mail: HHOSCH@UTEP.EDU.

261 0

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2000, 30, 12, pp. 2610-2621. Copyright 0 2000 by V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 261 1

making. In addition, the current research is designed to evaluate the impact of interpretation when many jurors are themselves bilingual.

Language Use

There is some evidence to implicate language as an index of social class, which in turn influences the outcome of trials. Wodak-Engel(l984) reported a pilot study of 15 hearings dealing with automobile accidents in Vienna, Austria, that suggests that the implicit speech norms for proper language in a courtroom are acquired by middle-class children during socialization. She suggested that working-class children do not have the same opportunity to learn these norms and that they are, therefore, at a disadvantage in court because they are less suc- cessful in presenting a good image. This disadvantage brought about real conse- quences in that sentences were more severe for working-class defendants.

O’Barr (1982) reported the results of an interesting project that evaluated the effects of courtroom speech style in North Carolina. Of the linguistic variables most critical to his findings was the distinction between “powerful” and “power- less” speech. Powerless speech was characterized by a number of features that occur with high frequency. These include hedges (“I guess . . .”), superpolite forms (“I’d really appreciate it i f . . .”), tag questions (“John is here, isn’t he?”), spealung in italics (intonational emphasis equivalent to underlined words in writ- ten language, such as emphatic “so” or “very”), emphatic adjectives (e.g., “divine,” “charming,” “sweet,” “lovely”), hypercorrect grammar and pronuncia- tion (boolush grammar and formal enunciation), lack of humor, direct quotations (rather than paraphrasing), use of a special lexicon (such as the color words magenta or puce), and question intonation in declarative contexts (such as in response to the question, “When will dinner be ready?” saying “Around 6 o’clock”; O’Barr, 1982).

Speech style (rather than content) influences the credibility of a witness. O’Barr (1982) explored this by collecting taped segments of court testimony that exemplified powerless speech. New tapes were then made by actors to replicate as closely as possible the speech characteristics in the original testimony. A sec- ond tape by the same actors omitted the features of powerless speech, thus gener- ating the same testimony in a powerful style. Mock jurors’ ratings of the taped testimony indicated clear and significant differences between the testimony given in powerful and powerless speech. Jurors who heard the powerfid speech rated the witness as more believable and more convincing. Moreover, the raters judged the witness using the more powerful speech style as significantly more compe- tent, trustworthy, and intelligent. It is clear from these results that speech style affects the credibility of a witness.

Important research exploring Spanish testimony interpreted in English was conducted by Berk-Seligson (1987). Based on the analysis of 2,470 answers by 27

2612 MENDOZA ET AL.

witnesses as interpreted by six interpreters, she discovered that interpreters system- atically increase the average number of words per statement in Spanish testimony when rendering it in English. She also found that in the process of interpreting and lengthening responses, a fragmented style became narrative by introducing ele- ments of powerless speech style. She concluded that because the narrative style rendered a favorable rating, while powerless speech style received an unfavorable rating, the shifting of these and the other styles would result in contradictory psy- cholinguistic perceptions by jurors. In that case, the interpreter would convey a dif- ferent impression from the one originally conveyed by the witness testifying in Spanish. For this reason, she considered the interpreter as “pivotal in controlling the form in which testimony is presented” (Berk-Seligson, 1987, p. 1088).

By comparing paired Spanish and English testimony, Berk-Seligson ( 1 987) found that systematic conversion of statements occurs when interpreters: (a) add hedges, (b) insert linguistic material perceived to be understood in the original testimony, (c) use uncontracted forms, (d) rephrase what the interpreter himself just said in the interpretation, (e) add polite forms of address, and ( f ) add hesita- tion forms. Most of these mechanisms of lengthening testimony are characteris- tics of the powerless testimonial style.

To illuminate the impact of these interpretational modifications of testimony on jurors’ evaluations of witnesses, Berk-Seligson (1990, pp. 146-197) con- ducted a set of experiments. She examined the influence of politeness, hyperfor- mality, hedging, and active versus passive voice on mock jurors’ impressions of the relative convincingness, competence, intelligence, and trustworthiness of wit- nesses. Her design presented one of two audio recordings of a witness testifying in Spanish through an interpreter, with the recordings being identical except for the manipulated difference in interpretation. The participants then rated the wit- ness. In comparison to the stimuli used by O’Barr (1982), Berk-Seligson’s stim- uli were short (4 min vs. 15 to 20 min); involved only one linguistic variable, such as the presence or absence of “Sir” in the English interpretation of the wit- ness’s answers; and were essentially devoid of facts about the case.

Berk-Seligson’s (1990) data revealed that for all subjects combined, wit- nesses whose interpreted testimony was “polite” were seen as significantly more convincing, competent, intelligent, and trustworthy. When broken down by juror ethnicity, the results for the non-Hispanic participants who had never studied Spanish mirrored those for the sample as a whole. Hispanic subjects differed in that they did not perceive the witness with the more polite interpretation to be more convincing or more trustworthy.

On three of the four social psychological attributes (i.e., competence, intelli- gence, and trustworthiness) both Hispanic and non-Hispanic subjects rated the witness more favorably when the interpretation was hyperformal. This suggests that all jurors expect testimony given under oath in a courtroom (an eminently formal context) to be formal.

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 2613

A dramatic cultural difference occurred when the manipulated variable was the presence or absence of hedging in the interpreted testimony. In the presence of hedges for the entire sample, the witness was seen as significantly less compe- tent, intelligent, and trustworthy. For the Hispanic subjects, however, hedging had no influence on the perception of the witness.

This result is likely to be a result of the difference in cultural speaking style between English-speaking North American Anglos and Spanish-speaking Latin Americans. That is, hedging is one manifestation of speaking indirectly, and being indirect is a positive attribute in Latin America. Anglo Americans, in con- trast, are perceived to be blunt, if not brusque, in their attempt to get to a point. Hedged, but narrative answers may not sound evasive to Hispanics, but would sound that way to Anglo Americans.

Finally, with respect to active versus passive speaking voice, Hispanic sub- jects did not perceive any differences between witnesses whose testimony was interpreted in a passive or an active voice. For the sample as a whole, however, the passive interpretation influenced the perception of the witness in two ways. He was seen as less intelligent and as less trustworthy. Unfortunately, whether these perceptions are translated into real consequences in terms of verdicts, sen- tences, and so forth was not tested in Berk-Seligson’s (1990) work.

Stephan and Stephan (1986) conducted two experiments in which jurors’ judgments of the defendants’ guilt were influenced by the method of testimony (English only, Spanish with English interpretation, or Spanish with English inter- pretation that included the judge’s admonition to disregard the fact that the testi- mony was translated). They found that non-Hispanics rated the defendant as more culpable when he testified in Spanish with English interpretation.

In contrast to the work of Berk-Seligson (1990), the Stephan and Stephan’s (1 986) investigation did not reveal any overall differences in participants’ judg- ments of the Hispanic defendant in the Spanish-English study. Their differential guilt results cannot be attributed to differential negative evaluations of the non- English speaking defendants.

A more recent experiment by Hosch, Carrillo, Prospero, Ponder, and Mendoza (1 996) assessed mock-jurors’ verdicts in an aggravated robbery case. The complaining witness’s testimony was presented either in English or in Span- ish and then interpreted into English. Jurors were divided into two groups based on their English and Spanish language dominance. The results of that study revealed that as the proportion of Spanish-dominant jurors on juries increased, the probability of a guilty verdict increased as well, given that the prosecution witness’s testimony was in Spanish. In the English-testimony condition, as the proportion of English-dominant jurors increased, the probability that the defen- dant would be convicted also increased. Hispanic (Mexican American) jurors were more likely to judge the prosecution witness favorably if he testified in the jurors’ dominant language and therefore were more likely to convict the

2614 MEND023 ET AL.

defendant more frequently. If the witness testified in the jurors’ nondominant language, they were less likely to perceive the witness as believable and were less likely to convict the defendant. Ratings of the interpreter were unrelated to the jurors’ probability of convicting the defendant.

The present study is designed to explore hrther the impact of interpreted tes- timony on jurors’ decisions. We are particularly interested in extending Berk- Seligson’s (1990) work by testing the degree to which the ultimate issues at bar (defendant guilt and sentencing) would be influenced by testimonial style. We expect that impressions of witnesses will vary as a function of speech style and that these impressions will be transformed into differential verdicts and sentence lengths.

Method

Overview

This study explores jurors’ behavior as it is influenced by differential inter- pretation of testimony. The design is a 2 x 2 (Witness Hedges and Hesitates: Does vs. Does Not x Interpreter Hedges and Hesitates: Does vs. Does Not) facto- rial with a separate, uninterpreted English testimony control group. The effect on the ultimate issues (guilt or innocence of the defendant and recommended sen- tence length) was assessed. An additional focus was the perceived credibility of a witness as it is influenced by the interpreter’s inclusion or deletion of hedges and hesitations in a witness’s statements and how these judgments predicted trial out- come.

Participants

Participants in this experiment were 188 Hispanic3 students enrolled in intro- ductory psychology courses at the University of Texas at El Paso. They all partic- ipated voluntarily in the study to satisfy their course research participation requirement. Of the participants, 61% ( N = 115) were male and 39% ( N = 73) were female. Their ages ranged between 17 and 59 years.

Procedure

After completing an experimental consent form, participants were informed that they would act as individual jurors on an aggravated robbery trial that they would see on videotape. The case consisted of testimony by a police officer and a

’Only self-reported Hispanic participants’ data are reported. to avoid confounding ethnicity with language dominance.

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 261 5

complaining witness who testified in Spanish. A professional court interpreter rendered the testimony in English. The defendant in the case pleaded not guilty, but did not testify.

After direct and cross-examination of both witnesses by the prosecution and defense, the judge read the instructions and the law as it applied in the case. Each juror watched a randomly assigned videotape that represented one of a factorial combination of testimony with or without hedges and hesitations by the witness, with or without hedges and hesitations by the interpreter, or an English-language control version.

After viewing the videotape, participants were asked to complete a series of forms, including an individual verdict, and if they found the defendant guilty, they were asked to recommend a sentence and the degree to which the sentence should be served. Participants chose among three options: serve full time (coded 3), serve minimum time with parole (coded 2), or receive a probated sentence (coded 1).

Mock jurors also provided demographic information and responded to a lan- guage dominance measure, the Los Angeles Epidemiological Catchment Area Acculturation scale (LAECA; Burnam, Telles, Karno, Hough, & Escobar, 1987). We used only 10 language-use items that assess respondents’ use and language preference in different situations (e.g., language of television viewing: Spanish only, mostly Spanish, Spanish and English equally, mostly English, or English only). A language-dominance scale was created as a numeric function by com- puting a sum of participants’ language-use items. On the basis of the frequency distribution of the new variable, the sample was divided into three levels of lan- guage dominance. Spanish dominance and English dominance were defined as being in the lower and upper thuds of the distribution, respectively. Participants whose language-use score was within the middle third were considered to be bal- anced English-Spanish bilinguals (balanced bilinguals).

Finally, participants completed a questionnaire asking them to rate the pri- mary trial participants on a 5-point Likert scale for a series of attributes. These attributes were as follows: how similar to the juror, how credible, how likable, how persuasive, how honest, how competent, and how intelligent the participants were.

Results

Verdicts

Overall, the jurors convicted the defendant 41% of the time. Comparing the Spanish-interpreted versions of the evidence ( M conviction rate = 42%) with prosecution witness testimony in English ( M conviction rate = 3 l%), no reliable difference was obtained, Zprop = 1.50, ns. That is, jurors were not reliably more

2616 MENDOZA ET AL.

Table 1

Mean Conviction Rate by Juror Language Dominance and Prosecution Witness Hesitation Condirion

Juror language dominance

Spanish English Witness condition dominant Balanced dominant

Hesitates 0.52 (31) 0.24 (32) 0.29 (31) Does not hesitate 0.42 (31) 0.61 (32) 0.39 (31)

Note. Numbers of jurors are in parentheses

or less likely to convict a defendant if the testimony against him was in Spanish and interpreted into English than they were if the testimony was proffered in English initially.

Within Spanish-interpreted conditions, however, a main effect of witness hes- itation on verdict was obtained using multiple contingency analysis, x2( 1. N =

188) = 4.08, p = .04. When the prosecution witness did not hedge or hesitate, the jurors convicted the defendant 47% of the time. When he did hedge and hesitate, they convicted the defendant 34% of the time.

This effect was modified by a reliable Witness Hesitation x Juror Language Dominance interaction effect, x2(2, N = 188) = 6.56, p < .04. As can be seen in Table 1, conviction rates vary considerably for the balanced-bilingual jurors as a function of witness hesitation condition. When the witness did not hesitate or hedge, balanced-bilingual jurors were significantly more likely to convict the defendant (61%) than when he did hesitate or hedge (24%), Zprop = 3.38, p < .01. When the witness hesitated or hedged, English-dominant (29%) and balanced- bilingual (24%) jurors were each significantly less likely to convict the defendant than were the Spanish-dominant jurors (52%), Zprop = 1.75, p < .05, and Zprop =

2.32, p < .01, respectively. No reliable main or interaction effects were obtained as a function of whether the interpreter included hesitations or did not do so.

Jurors’ Ratings of Key Participants

In order to evaluate the relation between jurors’ judgments of the key partic- ipants in the trial and jurors’ verdicts, discriminant function analyses were per- formed. The dependent variable was verdict, and the independent variables were jurors’ ratings. Analyses were conducted separately for each combination of witness hesitation by juror language dominance in the experimental design. Analyses were separate so that if differential judgment patterns were obtained

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 2617

within conditions, they would be readily observable and interpretable, while maximizing the available degrees of freedom.

Complaining (prosecution) witness. The verdicts in three of the cells of the Witness Hesitatiodedging x Juror Language Dominance interaction were sig- nificantly related to jurors’ judgments of the complaining witness. The Spanish- dominant jurors who were exposed to the no-hesitation condition were signifi- cantly more likely to convict the defendant, x2(9, N = 31) = 33.3, p = ,0001, to the degree that they perceived the prosecution witness to be trustworthy, credible, persuasive, and honest (all univariate Fs > 10.6, Bonferronips < .004). Similarly, the English-dominant jurors who were exposed to the no-hesitation condition were significantly more likely to convict the defendant, x2(9, N = 31) = 2 4 . 9 , ~ =

.003, to the degree that they perceived the complaining witness to be credible, persuasive, and competent (all univariate Fs > 10.9, Bonferroni ps < .003). Finally, the balanced-bilingual jurors who were exposed to the hesitation condi- tion were significantly more likely to convict the defendant, x2(9, N = 32) = 28.7, p = .0007, to the degree that they perceived the complaining witness to be trust- worthy, credible, persuasive, honest, knowledgeable, competent, and intelligent (all univariate Fs > 12.1, Bonferroni p s < .002).

Interpreter. The jurors’ ratings of the interpreter were subjected to discrimi- nant analysis in order to assess the relation between these judgments and jurors’ verdicts, just as was done with the ratings of the complaining witness. Jurors’ verdicts were independent of their ratings of the interpreter.

Sentences and Time to Serve

No significant main or interaction effects were obtained when the second and third dependent variables (participants’ recommended sentences and their judgment of the degree to which the sentence should be served) were analyzed (all p s > .25). These dependent variables were analyzed no further.

Discussion

A number of findings from this research are of importance. First, we did not find that the language in which the witness against him testified influenced the defendant’s probability of being convicted. This is an encouraging finding, given that previous work in El Paso (TX) District Courts had demonstrated a negative impact on defendants if these defendants testified in Spanish (Hosch, Daudistel, Holmes, & Graves, 1991). A more direct test is needed to see if the lack of an effect in the laboratory was a result of the fact that in the current work it was the prosecution witness, rather than the defendant, whose testimony was in Spanish or in English, whereas in the District Court data, it was the defendant testifying in Spanish or English.

2618 MENDOZA ET AL.

The second null effect worth mentioning is that the interpreter’s behavior, including or excluding hedges and hesitations, did not impact verdicts. Nor were jurors’ evaluations of the interpreter related to verdicts. The fact that the inter- preter was “invisible” with respect to jurors’ decisions is a good outcome, in many ways. It suggests that the impact that interpreters might have on the out- come of cases, which has concerned linguists (e.g., Berk-Seligson, 1990) and those involved in courtroom interpretation training (Duenas Gonzalez, Vasquez, & Mikkelson, 1991, pp. 273-280), may be less than has been expected. Or, it may be that because the majority of jurors (most of the Spanish dominant, all of the bilinguals, and at least some of the English dominant) understood enough of the original testimony and the interpretation, they relied on their own interpretation and ignored the interpreter. Additional research with bilingual jurors could be designed specifically to test the degree to which interpreters’ behavior and the impressions they make have an impact on jurors.

The finding that the witness’s hedges and hesitations were significantly related to trial outcome is important. The main effect we observed suggests that witness hesitation and hedging is a powerless speech effect. When the prosecu- tion witness included hedges and hesitations, he was not as persuasive, and the defendant was less likely to be convicted.

The fact that witness speech interacted with the language dominance of jurors is also very interesting. Recall that when the prosecution witness used hedges and hesitations, the English-dominant and balanced-bilingual jurors were signifi- cantly less likely to convict the defendant. In English, hedges and hesitations sig- nal attempts to confabulate. The English-dominant jurors did not find the prosecution witness as believable when he hedged and hesitated. Spanish-domi- nant jurors were not influenced by this behavior, which is associated (particularly the hedges) with polite speech in Spanish. When the witness did not hesitate and hedge, the balanced-bilingual jurors were most believing and most likely to con- vict the defendant, whereas the Spanish-dominant and English-dominant jurors were much less influenced. It may be that the balanced-bilingual jurors feel most comfortable with other Spanish speakers who use a powefil speaking style and find them particularly persuasive. We speculate that balanced bilinguals are more bicultural than are either English-dominant or Spanish-dominant individuals. They are, therefore, used to and comfortable with the direct speaking style of the Anglo, English-speaking culture, no matter the language (in this instance, Span- ish) in which this style is expressed.

Impressions of the complaining witness whose testimony was interpreted were unrelated to the quality of the interpretation. Th~s is not consistent with pre- vious research. For example, the impressions of the witness’ competence and intelligence were influenced by whether polite or nonpolite versions of inter- preted testimony was heard by Hispanic jurors in research by Berk-Seligson (1990). A witness whose testimony was interpreted in a polite way was judged to

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 2619

be more competent and more intelligent than the witness whose testimony was not interpreted in a polite manner. Impressions of the witness in the current study were based on the behavior of the witness, rather than the interpretation. Our His- panic jurors’ impressions of the witness’ ability (e.g., knowledgeability and intel- ligence) and persuasiveness (e.g.. credibility, trustworthiness) were influenced by his speech style, and these impressions were predictive of jurors’ verdicts.

This study has a number of limitations that must be noted. First, only college students served as participants in this research. Several authors have discussed the issue of the generalizability of mock-juror data obtained from college-student samples. Diamond’s (1997) recent paper discusses the current status of jury- simulation research and the circumstances under which college students are likely to differ systematically from juror-pool and community-member samples. It is clear that students differ in systematic ways from pools of actual jurors. Unfortunately, we lack good theories that will allow us to understand under what circumstances these systematic differences may actually have an impact on the outcome of trial research.

A recent paper by Bornstein (1999) suggests that the impact of student jurors may not be so great as has been expected. He reviewed 26 studies that directly compared student mock jurors to community resident samples. In only 5 of the 26 studies was there a significant difference between the two types of jurors, and in only 2 studies did the type of juror interact with any other variable under investigation. Where differences occurred, the student jurors tended to be more lenient in their judgments than did community residents.

Data from two recent studies conducted in El Paso County, Texas (Daudistel, Hosch, Holmes, Perez, & Graves, 1999; Perez, Hosch, Ponder, & Chanez, 1993) shed some light on this issue as well. Participants in the Perez et al. study were students from the same university as those who participated in the current study. Those in Daudistel et al. study were actual jurors who tried criminal cases in El Paso (TX) District Courts. In both cases, an in-group bias effect was obtained: Jurors’ decisions favored in-group members. The difference between the results of these two studies was that the actual jurors (Daudistel et al., 1999) were more likely to be severe on out-group members, whereas the students (Perez et al., 1993) were more likely to be lenient on in-group members. These data suggest that the effects found in the current research would be exaggerated had actual jurors served as participants. The current study must be replicated with actual jurors, however, to see if this prediction is correct.

A second limitation of this study is that our jurors did not deliberate as juries. Diamond (1997) also points out that the average of jurors’ individual decisions does not necessarily predict with absolute fidelity the outcomes of decisions by juries. We acknowledge this limitation and suggest that future studies be designed to address the interesting issues that deliberations would illuminate. For example, the degree to which Spanish-dominant jurors actually participate in

2620 MENDOZA ET AL.

deliberations that proceed in English is not known. Further, their role as in-the- jury-room interpreters needs to be explored systematically.

Third, we used only Hispanic participants. While our research design allowed us to remove ethnicity as a variable that is typically confounded with language dominance, we also lost the opportunity to explore the impact of ethnic bias and its interaction with language dominance on trial outcome. Other studies explor- ing the joint effects of language of testimony, witnesses’ ethnicity, jurors’ ethnic- ity, and language dominance on trial outcomes need to be conducted.

In conclusion, our data suggest that the impact of the court interpreter may be less than has been suggested in previous studies. This is particularly true when the triers of fact are themselves able to understand and interpret the testi- mony of a witness proffered in Spanish, or presumably any language other than English. These jurors are not so dependent on the quality of interpretation, nor are they as influenced by culturally related speech styles as are monolingual English speakers. The presence of jurors who speak the language of testimony and are sensitive to the nonverbal and stylistic manner in which a non-English speaker may testify cannot ensure a fair trial (i.e., they are subject to misinter- pretations to the degree that they are not as proficient as native speakers in both languages). Yet, their presence on a jury trying a case where non-English testi- mony is given should increase the chances that jury decisions will be based on the facts in evidence, rather than extra-evidentiary considerations, such as testi- mony language.

We hasten to add that this conclusion is at variance with the fact that judges routinely instruct jurors to ignore non-English language testimony and to listen to (and use) the court interpreter’s English interpretations exclusively in making their decision. This stance, unfortunately, conflicts with what psychology knows about human attention, memory, and motivation. The Supreme Court has acknowledged the possible advantage of having bilinguals serve as jurors when it indicated that trial judges could consider bilingual jurors’ input regarding con- cerns with translation.

In Hernandez v. New York (1991), the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision of a trial judge to allow a prosecutor to use peremptory challenges to strike two jurors whom the prosecutor doubted would listen and defer to the court interpreter’s translation as the official version of evidence given in Spanish. The Court rejected the appeal on constitutional grounds (no intent to discriminate against Hispanic venire persons was found). In the opinion, the Court acknowl- edged that, in some jurisdictions, excluding Spanish-speaking jurors might be a pretext for race-based challenges. In addition, Justice Kennedy, writing for the plurality, indicated that Spanish-speaking jurors could be permitted to discreetly advise a trial judge of their concerns with a translation. The potential for improv- ing on translations in bilingual trials could be construed as a positive correlate of the presence of bilingual jurors.

HESITATIONS AND HEDGES 2621

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