Linguistics and the law: how knowledge of, or ignorance of, elementary linguistics may affect the dispensing of justice

Abstract

Ignorance of elementary linguistic concepts may have a bearing on justice. This thesis is drawn from the conviction appeal of a Haitian-born American sentenced to prison for 12 years for dealing cocaine. The verdict was based in part on a surreptitious recording of the drug deal. Although the drug dealer on the tape spoke a dialect of American Black English, and the defendant speaks English with a Creole accent, the State persuaded the jury that the Haitian disguised his voice by purposefully dropping his accent. His ability to perform this feat was attributed in testimony to the fact that he had been an interpreter for the United States Army in Haiti, and was therefore a linguist, and therefore understood ‘sound change’, and therefore could disguise his voice by dropping his foreign accent. This absurd chain of non sequiturs, and the resulting miscarriage of justice, is the result of linguistic naivety and would not have occurred if the court knew that an interpreter is not necessarily a linguist, and that sound change refers to the historical development of languages.