Miss-Delectable
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The trials of accomodating a deaf murder defendant - Chicago Sun-Times
Behind the glass doors of one of Bridgeview’s felony courtrooms, a tall white projection screen nearly blocked the action inside.
A giant TV sat near the judge, facing the jury box, and smaller TV monitors perched on the defense table. Throughout the room, hands were flying.
Accused murderer Gary Albert sat at the defense table, focusing on the face and fingers of one of several interpreters who will translate every word uttered aloud into American Sign Language during his upcoming trial.
Jury selection is scheduled to start in about a month, and at a hearing last week, Judge Joan O’Brien wanted to test some of the extra features Albert and other hearing-impaired participants in the case will rely on.
Born deaf, Albert is accused in the 1981 stabbing murder of Dawn Niles, his classmate at the Hinsdale South High School, which had a program for deaf students. He was 18 then, he’s now 48.
Niles, of LaGrange Park, was 15 and pregnant with his child when she was found in the Horsetail Slough Forest Preserve near 123rd Street and 104th Avenue in Palos Township. She had been missing for six days. She had been stabbed more than 30 times.
Her case was reopened in 2006, and Albert, her boyfriend at the time of her death, was charged in March 2008, after modern DNA tools linked him to the crime.
Albert, of Sugar Grove, reads lips poorly, a former attorney said, and needs a sign language interpreter to communicate with people. American Sign Language, rather than English, is his first language, attorneys said.
His current legal team has argued he wasn’t properly warned about his rights during a six-hour recorded interview with a Cook County Sheriff’s detective. The Chicago police officer who signed back and forth was not licensed; he was self-taught.
The judge will let prosecutors use the interview, but chided investigators last year for not giving Albert a written version of his rights or a licensed interpreter during the questioning.
So at trial, he’ll have at least three.
One will sit at the defense table, chatting with him and his attorneys, Thomas Breen and Todd Pugh.
One will perch in the open space in front of the judge, relaying every audible word to Albert.
When deaf witnesses take the stand, as is expected, one will sign questions and voice answers aloud, in the space between the witness stand and the jury box.
The third interpreter will have to fit near the witness stand, because, as the male interpreter explained aloud to the judge during the rehearsal, he can’t voice the witness’ testimony and sign it at the same time. It’s impossible to speak in one language and sign in another, and ASL isn’t English.
Fingers point out who’s talking. Hands race. Lips silently repeat the speaker’s words while eyebrows crinkle and soar to convey the tone and demeanor of the spoken voice.
So everyone in the room will have to remember to keep the sightline clear between Albert and the seated witness.
Plus the court reporter’s transcript will be projected live onto several of the screens, including the large white one facing the right half of the audience.
By the rehearsal’s end, the male interpreter is sweating, and the judge is satisfied that the proceedings afford Albert the same access to justice as anyone else.
As O’Brien leaves the bench, the defense team tests how they’ll confer privately, huddling behind the white screen that also will block their conversation from the eyes of anyone else who can read their words.
The attorneys practice a couple of key words that’ll come up a ton.
“OK,” they say, putting thumbs and index fingers together.
Then Breen hooks his index finger, deciphering another one:
“Question.”
Behind the glass doors of one of Bridgeview’s felony courtrooms, a tall white projection screen nearly blocked the action inside.
A giant TV sat near the judge, facing the jury box, and smaller TV monitors perched on the defense table. Throughout the room, hands were flying.
Accused murderer Gary Albert sat at the defense table, focusing on the face and fingers of one of several interpreters who will translate every word uttered aloud into American Sign Language during his upcoming trial.
Jury selection is scheduled to start in about a month, and at a hearing last week, Judge Joan O’Brien wanted to test some of the extra features Albert and other hearing-impaired participants in the case will rely on.
Born deaf, Albert is accused in the 1981 stabbing murder of Dawn Niles, his classmate at the Hinsdale South High School, which had a program for deaf students. He was 18 then, he’s now 48.
Niles, of LaGrange Park, was 15 and pregnant with his child when she was found in the Horsetail Slough Forest Preserve near 123rd Street and 104th Avenue in Palos Township. She had been missing for six days. She had been stabbed more than 30 times.
Her case was reopened in 2006, and Albert, her boyfriend at the time of her death, was charged in March 2008, after modern DNA tools linked him to the crime.
Albert, of Sugar Grove, reads lips poorly, a former attorney said, and needs a sign language interpreter to communicate with people. American Sign Language, rather than English, is his first language, attorneys said.
His current legal team has argued he wasn’t properly warned about his rights during a six-hour recorded interview with a Cook County Sheriff’s detective. The Chicago police officer who signed back and forth was not licensed; he was self-taught.
The judge will let prosecutors use the interview, but chided investigators last year for not giving Albert a written version of his rights or a licensed interpreter during the questioning.
So at trial, he’ll have at least three.
One will sit at the defense table, chatting with him and his attorneys, Thomas Breen and Todd Pugh.
One will perch in the open space in front of the judge, relaying every audible word to Albert.
When deaf witnesses take the stand, as is expected, one will sign questions and voice answers aloud, in the space between the witness stand and the jury box.
The third interpreter will have to fit near the witness stand, because, as the male interpreter explained aloud to the judge during the rehearsal, he can’t voice the witness’ testimony and sign it at the same time. It’s impossible to speak in one language and sign in another, and ASL isn’t English.
Fingers point out who’s talking. Hands race. Lips silently repeat the speaker’s words while eyebrows crinkle and soar to convey the tone and demeanor of the spoken voice.
So everyone in the room will have to remember to keep the sightline clear between Albert and the seated witness.
Plus the court reporter’s transcript will be projected live onto several of the screens, including the large white one facing the right half of the audience.
By the rehearsal’s end, the male interpreter is sweating, and the judge is satisfied that the proceedings afford Albert the same access to justice as anyone else.
As O’Brien leaves the bench, the defense team tests how they’ll confer privately, huddling behind the white screen that also will block their conversation from the eyes of anyone else who can read their words.
The attorneys practice a couple of key words that’ll come up a ton.
“OK,” they say, putting thumbs and index fingers together.
Then Breen hooks his index finger, deciphering another one:
“Question.”
