Problem:
Where" does not matter I believe we all agree there are certain guiding principles that apply across the board to everyone providing language services in a legal setting. Whether state or federal, in court or out of court, interpreters in legal settings have the exact same ethical duties to be accurate and impartial. The responsibility of conveying fully what a speaker has said in one language into another language, retaining the same meaning and discursive register, does not change because the interpreter's physical environment has changed. The idea that some judiciary interpreters don't need the same set of skills as others, that it's okay for some judiciary interpreters to perform at a lower level of competency than others, is simply ridiculous. A criminal defendant in a state court has the same constitutional rights as a criminal defendant in federal court. It has been established for more than four decades by now that the reason for non-English speakers to be provided with an interpreter is that to do otherwise would be a gross miscarriage of justice.