Tag: South Dakota

Videoconferencing as a (temporary) solution to the lack of court interpreters

This is an interesting article about the shortage of interpreters in the South Dakota court system. The state only has about 80 qualified interpreters, and only a fraction of them speak the primary languages of non-English-speaking litigants: Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, and Dinka.

The lack of qualified interpreters presents a serious access to justice issue. It can delay cases or even corrupt proceedings if the interpreter translates incorrectly. Moreover, interpreters must have familiarity with the technical language of court proceedings in order to be effective.

The article suggests one technology-based solution: bringing in interpreters remotely through videoconferencing. This approach has its own challenges, including technical glitches and lag time, but it may be the best available response at the moment. Still, it only seems a matter of time before high-quality, reliable AI could be used for simultaneous courtroom translation.

South Dakota mulls ending contested judicial elections

The legislative proposal is still in its early stages, and would need voter approval in 2024. It would end contested elections of judges and create a mechanism for formally allowing all judges to be appointed by the Governor. All judges would then face periodic retention elections, during which they would run unopposed and voters would choose to retain them for another term.

The proposal is far less radical as it seems. As this article points out, almost all state judges are already appointed to fill vacancies that occur between election cycles. Indeed, almost no judges actually ascend to the bench in the first instance from a direct election. Removing the requirement of contested elections is therefore as much a housekeeping measure as anything else.

It’s also an excellent idea. Contested judicial elections are in fact almost never contested, and when they are they are subject to deep politicization. Retention elections would continue to provide accountability to the voters, especially if it is paired with a robust judicial performance evaluation program.

Let’s see how this plays out. It is a hard thing for voters to give up their franchise, even in elections where there is rarely a decision to be made. But it is a development that bears watching.