(Durham, North Carolina) Apparently, if an officer pulls over a Spanish-speaking drunk driver and gives him a breathalyzer test, the results will be thrown out of court unless the officer read the offender his rights in Spanish. According to District Court Judge Richard Chaney, the legal principle doesn't apply to Chinese-speaking drunk drivers.
From U.S. Newswire:
A North Carolina judge threw out the roadside breathalyzer test results of a Spanish speaker, saying that the officers had a duty to give him his rights in Spanish. The decision by Durham County District Court Judge Richard Chaney in a case against Francisco Pereyra is the latest in a string of judgments that have dismissed breathalyzer results due to the language barrier. Chaney's judgment on the rights of Spanish speaking DWI offenders went a step further, when he added "If you're talking about someone who speaks Chinese, you have a different issue."Therefore, as a travel advisory, any North Carolinians who foresee a possibility of being behind the wheel after a few libations should practice saying, "No hablo ingles."
Seriously, though, I think this whole issue is loony. First of all, there's a fair liklihood that Spanish-speakers in the U.S. are illegal aliens and they can't be arrested for sneaking into the country. Secondly, illegal aliens typically don't have driver's licenses so they aren't legal drivers. And, now, it's apparently an unprosecutable crime for Spanish-speakers to drive drunk unless law enforcement personnel speak Spanish. It's just plain loony.
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