BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 810 (Wagner)
Hearing Date: 08/25/2011 Amended: 06/27/2011
Consultant: Jolie Onodera Policy Vote: Judiciary 4-0
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 810 would revise and recast provisions relating
to court interpreters and translators, as well as delete
obsolete language as a result of trial court restructuring.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Fund
Authority to employ Unknown; significant cost pressure
inGeneral
interpreters the hundreds of thousands to millions
of dollars
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE.
In 1998, California voters approved Proposition 220 which
provided for the voluntary consolidation of superior and
municipal courts, and as of February 2001, the courts in all 58
counties have unified. Relatedly, the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial
Court Funding Act of 1997 provided that the state, as opposed to
the counties, was responsible for the funding of trial court
operations.
As a result of the reforms, hundreds of sections of the
California codes became obsolete. The Legislature commissioned
the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) to review all
affected statutes and to identify needed revisions. The CLRC has
issued several reports outlining provisions to be deleted,
revised, or recast in light of enactment of the Trial Court
Funding Act. This bill seeks to generally enact the portions of
a 2009 CLRC report regarding the revision and recasting of many
of the provisions related to the employment, assignment, and
compensation of interpreters and translators. Specifically, this
bill would:
AB 810 (Wagner)
Page 1
1) Restate California's constitutional requirement that
a person unable to understand English who is charged with
a crime has a right to an interpreter throughout the
proceedings;
2) Permit the court clerk to employ as many foreign
language interpreters as may be necessary to interpret
cases in superior court, and to translate documents as
may be required pursuant to the Trial Court Interpreter
Employment and Labor Relations Act;
3) Provide that in addition to any other right to an
interpreter, the clerk of the court shall, when
interpreters are needed, assign interpreters to interpret
in criminal and juvenile delinquency cases in the
superior court; and,
4) Permit the court clerk to also assign interpreters
to interpret in civil cases in the superior court, if an
assignment in a civil case can be made without causing
the court to be unable to perform its obligations in
criminal proceedings.
Under existing law, in counties having a population of over
900,000, the court clerk may employ as many foreign language
interpreters as may be necessary to interpret in criminal cases
in the superior court and in the juvenile court. By amending
existing law to allow the employment of as many interpreters as
may be necessary to interpret in all cases (both criminal and
civil) in all counties could result in cost pressure to the
courts for increased employment of interpreters of an unknown
but potentially significant amount. According to the Department
of Finance county population projections data from June 2011,
only nine of the 58 counties currently exceed the 900,000
population threshold. Total expenditures for court interpreter
costs were $93.7 million (General Fund) in 2008-09, $88 million
in 2009-10. The recently enacted budget includes $92.8 million
in 2010-11 and 2011-12 for these costs.
The 2009 CLRC report recommended that in order to avoid the
misimpression that the right to an interpreter in a criminal
case applies only in a county of 900,000 or more persons, to
simply restate the constitutional requirement in Section
69894.5, alongside the provisions from Section 26806 that apply
only in a county of 900,000 or more persons. Amending the bill
to retain the reference stating court clerks may employ as many
foreign language interpreters as may be necessary to interpret
AB 810 (Wagner)
Page 2
criminal cases as the CLRC report suggests would minimize the
cost pressure that the current provision in the bill creates.
In addition, the CLRC commented that the provision in existing
law requiring that interpreters collect from the litigants the
fee fixed by the court and deposit it into the county treasury
has been rendered obsolete due to the Trial Court Funding Act
and the Trial Court Interpreter Employment and Labor Relations
Act, under which the courts collect fees, as well as manage and
pay for court interpreters. This bill would remove that
language, as well as outdated references to costs for
translating and carbon copies of translations.