WILLIAM FRANK HUTCHENS, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.
We reverse the defendant’s conviction and remand the cause for a new trial.
We hold that the trial judge erred in allowing the jury (which, without dispute, was made up of two persons who understood Spanish and four who did not) to listen to approximately forty minutes of a tape recording in Spanish, which recording purported to recount conversations relevant to the charges in this case between an undercover drug agent and others (sometimes the defendant) without having such recording translated into English for the jurors by an interpreter sworn to give a faithful and accurate translation, despite the defendant’s clear, but overruled, request that he do so. See Kelly v. State, 96 Fla. 348, 118 So. 1 (1928).
Even if, as the State suggests, a translation of the recording would reveal that the conversations thereon are totally admissible, we nonetheless must conclude that the potential of some members of the jury interpreting the otherwise incomprehensible testimony for other members of the jury is so fraught with the danger of prejudice that what is actually on the recording can serve only to exacerbate the prejudice.
Reversed and remanded for a new trial.
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Ortega v. State, 721 So. 2d 350 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998)…nterpreter at change of plea hearing). Second, while Detective Formosa took the oath for a witness, he was not required to take the oath set forth for interpreters and translators under section 90.606, Florida Statutes (1995). In Hutchens v. State, 469 So. 2d 924 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), the Third District held that it was error to publish to the jury a forty-minute tape recording in Spanish “without having such recording translated into English for the jurors by an interpreter sworn to give a faithful and accura…
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Fernandez v. State, 21 So. 3d 155 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009)…dio recordings in Spanish are admitted into evidence. See Hernandez v. State, 723 So. 2d 857, 859 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) (stating that the jury should have been provided with an interpreter to translate Spanish-language audio tapes); Hutchens v. State, 469 So. 2d 924, 925 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985) (same). In this appeal, Fernandez claims that the translation used at trial was rendered by one party against another and that it is reversible error for a party to translate material that is used against the party’s opponen…
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State v. Hutchens, 517 So. 2d 27 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)…this condition by also playing the Spanish portions of the tape. Defense objections and motions for mistrial were denied. In an appeal to this court the defendant’s conviction was reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial. Hutchens v. State, 469 So. 2d 924 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985). The court held in Hutchens, 469 So. 2d at 925, that it was prejudicial error to allow a jury, made up of two persons who understood Spanish and four who did not, to listen to about forty minutes of a tape recording in Spanish whi…
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- Kelly v. State, 96 Fla. 348 (Fla. 1928)