Justice Closes Discrimination Case Against Colorado Courts

DENVER (AP) - The U.S. Department of Justice has closed a discrimination case against the state court system in Colorado that was sparked by concerns about the way people who speak little English were being treated.

Colorado was lauded for strides it made following the filing of a complaint under the Civil Rights Act that courts in the state were requiring parties in civil cases to bring their own interpreters, the department said in a statement Tuesday. Reforms were laid out in a memorandum of agreement the state's chief justice and top court administrator signed in 2011 and a strategic plan issued the next year that has been closely monitored since.

"We commend State Court Administrator Gerald Marroney and his staff for their dedicated, collaborative efforts to transform the delivery of language access services for the benefit of all," Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

Changes included translating hundreds of court forms and signs into Spanish. This year, Colorado court officials began making those documents available in six more languages. While Spanish remains the most frequently needed language, court interpreters in Colorado are called on for more than 200 languages, state officials said.

Colorado courts also have created a phone bank in Boulder that judges across the state can call to speak to an interpreter, a service for relatively simple proceedings, such as brief pre-trial hearings. At trials, interpreters work in person and in pairs, relieving each other every 20 minutes. The strategic plan also had called for improving training for interpreters, which include staff and contract employees. Spending for the Colorado court's Office of Language Access doubled from just over $2 million in 2003 to just over $4 million in 2013.

Rob McCallum, spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Department, said the justice department "helped us build a quality program for Colorado."

Colorado courts opened a language office in 1998, two years before the federal government called on courts across the country to improve language services. McCallum said his department was informed in 2004 that a civil rights complaint had been filed, but he did not have the name of the person who complained or other details. McCallum said the department continued expanding its language office and heard nothing more about the complaint until being contacted by the justice department in 2011 with an offer of help to address concerns. That offer, which led to the strategic plan, came a year after the justice department issued guidelines to help courts across the country understand what needed to be done to ensure people who speak limited English had "meaningful access" to all legal proceedings.

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