Miss-Delectable
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Justice may be blind, but it's also deaf or very hard of hearing
Some people can't hear. Others don't want to.
It is the deliberately hard of hearing who turned a deaf ear to Latell Chaney and left him sitting in a southern Minnesota jail for months without access to an interpreter who might have helped him.
Chaney, 33, has been deaf since he was a baby and communicates by American Sign Language, which is not a way of speaking English with hand signals, but an entirely different language, like Somali or Spanish. The criminal justice system has gotten better at accommodating people who don't speak English. But people who use ASL still have trouble making themselves heard.
Chaney was released from a state prison July 15, after the Minnesota Court of Appeals overturned a conviction stemming from a 2006 tussle that resulted in a car chase and a crash. The conviction was thrown out on a legal technicality, but Chaney's attorney and advocates for the deaf argue that the whole matter would have been handled better -- and possibly without Chaney spending almost a year behind bars -- if authorities had followed state law and given him an interpreter.
"He's been a victim of discrimination at every turn," says Chaney's attorney, Ed Matthews of the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron, who took the case pro bono after advocates for the deaf complained that Chaney had been neglected by his public defender and treated unfairly.
Chaney, who is black, was the victim in a notorious 1995 beating when he was waiting for a bus in Minneapolis and gang members mistook his use of sign language for gang signs. Chaney was beaten so severely that he lost an eye and suffered lasting injuries to his throat.
Some people can't hear. Others don't want to.
It is the deliberately hard of hearing who turned a deaf ear to Latell Chaney and left him sitting in a southern Minnesota jail for months without access to an interpreter who might have helped him.
Chaney, 33, has been deaf since he was a baby and communicates by American Sign Language, which is not a way of speaking English with hand signals, but an entirely different language, like Somali or Spanish. The criminal justice system has gotten better at accommodating people who don't speak English. But people who use ASL still have trouble making themselves heard.
Chaney was released from a state prison July 15, after the Minnesota Court of Appeals overturned a conviction stemming from a 2006 tussle that resulted in a car chase and a crash. The conviction was thrown out on a legal technicality, but Chaney's attorney and advocates for the deaf argue that the whole matter would have been handled better -- and possibly without Chaney spending almost a year behind bars -- if authorities had followed state law and given him an interpreter.
"He's been a victim of discrimination at every turn," says Chaney's attorney, Ed Matthews of the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron, who took the case pro bono after advocates for the deaf complained that Chaney had been neglected by his public defender and treated unfairly.
Chaney, who is black, was the victim in a notorious 1995 beating when he was waiting for a bus in Minneapolis and gang members mistook his use of sign language for gang signs. Chaney was beaten so severely that he lost an eye and suffered lasting injuries to his throat.