Public Notice Detail

ST. PAUL, MN (March 29, 2001) – Ramsey County judges have expressed strong support for the Judiciary’s legislative request of $86.6 million.  The funding will greatly help the Second Judicial District cope with its serious shortage of advocates for abused and neglected children and interpreters for non-English-speaking people.

Several thousand abused and neglected children in Ramsey County currently have no voice in many serious court proceedings which determine their fate, even though advocates are required by state and federal law.

“These are kids who are in the worst possible cases,” said Judge Lawrence Cohen, Chief Judge of the Second Judicial District (Ramsey County).  “We hear cases where young children have been thrown out of windows, beaten, scarred by cigarette burns and sexually abused.  Yet they are often the only ones in the courtroom who have no one to advocate for them and represent their best interests.”

The Judiciary’s proposed budget would dedicate $6.8 million to provide guardians ad litem, or advocates for abused and neglected children, across the state.

Ramsey County relies on volunteer guardians ad litem and currently, there are too few to meet demands.  Statewide, 40 percent of all Minnesota children involved in child abuse and neglect cases have no voice in court proceedings even though an advocate is required by state and federal law.  An additional 14 percent have inadequate representation because existing guardians are stretched so thin they cannot spend enough time per case.

“It is ironic that in a system labeled ‘child protection,’ there are hundreds of children each year who have no one to represent their best interests in court,” said Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen A. Blatz.  “Without guardians, we’re missing one of the best opportunities we have to change the course of a child’s life.”

Court interpreters

Ramsey County courts are also struggling to provide qualified interpreters for non-English-speaking people.  Interpreters are constitutionally mandated because they are fundamental to understanding court proceedings.

In the past 10 years, Ramsey County has seen the number of cases involving interpreters grow nearly 600 percent.  The courts encounter 50-60 different languages, from Hmong and Spanish to Tigrinian, Oromo, Punjabi-Montani and Urdu.

“There have been criminal cases that I’ve been forced to continue because we could not get interpreters,” Judge Cohen said. This has required defendants, attorneys, police and others to return to court several times at great expense to the entire system. “We have no options.  We must provide qualified interpreters,” Judge Cohen said.  “Anything short of that is denial of due process of law.”

Language barriers can double or triple court time.  On Jan. 26, 2001, the Minnesota Legislative Auditor reported that more than half of attorneys and judges agree that cultural and language differences significantly affect the court’s ability to process cases today compared with five years ago.

Statewide, judicial district expenditures on interpreter services increased by 197 percent in just four years, from $674,000 in 1996 to $2 million in 2000.

“We have unacceptable deficits in many areas and we must work to change that,” said Chief Justice Blatz.  “If we fail to address the court system’s needs, there will be real consequences for real people.”