From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Oct 22 2009 - 09:59:42 EDT
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091021/NEWS/910210318/1001
October 21, 2009
Translator mix-up may doom murder suspect's confession
Murder suspect didn't waive rights, defense says
*
John Hult
jhult@argusleader.com*
A North African man accused of beating his girlfriend to death with a PVC
pipe did not waive his Miranda rights, Judge Larry Long was told during a
suppression hearing Tuesday.
Michaele Ashko Shimayil is originally from Eritrea, a small country between
Ethiopia and Sudan that borders the Red Sea, and speaks an obscure dialect
called Kunama. Officers say he confessed to beating 24-year-old Bakita
Mohammed through his interpreter the night of the incident, but that
interpreter testified Tuesday that he speaks Tigrinya, the country's most
widely-spoken language, and only a little Kunama.
Both prosecution and defense lawyers acknowledge that Shimayil did not
understand the rights as interpreted after his arrest for the April 20
incident.
Shimayil's confession ought to be admissible on "good faith," Deputy State's
Attorney Randy Sample said, because the interrogating officers thought at
the time that the defendant had voluntarily waived his right to
self-incrimination.
"This is a situation where police believed the defendant was read his
Miranda and understood it," Sample said. "It's our position that law
enforcement did everything it could to apply Miranda."
Ghevere Tsegoy, who was the interpreter for Shimayil the night of the
incident, told Long that he got a call asking him to translate for an
interrogation but was not aware of the severity of the crime.
"I expected a car accident, drunk driver," Tsegoy said.
Despite never having taken part in such an intense interrogation, Tsegoy
said Shimayil appeared to understand as he translated the six Miranda
warnings and asked if Shimayil would like to waive his rights and speak to
detectives.
"I asked if he understood, and he said 'yes,' " he said.
Public Defender Jeff Larson asked Tsegoy if he'd been required to take an
English proficiency test to get his job at A To Z Language Interpreters or
if he'd had any training for law enforcement interpretation.
He had not.
Officer Patrick Marino arrested Shimayil for driving under the influence on
the night of the attack. During his testimony Tuesday, Larson played back
audio of that interaction, during which Shimayil said "no English - Kunama"
on four occasions.
Once the suspect made it to the Law Enforcement Center, Marino learned more
about the suspect's ethnic origin and called for an interpreter who could
speak either Tigrinya or Kunama.
"With my limited knowledge on where he was from, I thought they were related
languages," he said.
The police report said the interview was conducted in "Tigrinya, the
language of Kenya."
Detective Keith Gries interrogated Shimayil with Tsegoy's help and said he
thought the suspect understood the nature of the conversation and the
severity of the crime.
"It was apparent to me that he knew why he was there," he said.
Shimayil, testifying through a Kunama interpreter, said he can only
communicate with basic words and phrases in Tigrinya.
Long will need to rule on the defense's motion to suppress evidence from the
interrogation.
Shimayil's jury trial is tentatively scheduled to begin Dec. 7.
Reach John Hult at 331-2301.
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