A Study of Dictionaries in U.s. and Latin American Courts - August 2007 - Legal Research Corner

• Publication year: 2007
• Pages: 115

36 Colo.Law. 115 Colorado Lawyer 2007.

2007, August, Pg. 115. A Study of Dictionaries in U.S. and Latin American Courts - August 2007 - Legal Research Corner

The Colorado Lawyer
August 2007
Vol. 36, No. 8 [Page 115]

Departments
Legal Research Corner
A Study of Dictionaries in U.S. and Latin American Courts
by Sergio D. Stone

This department, published quarterly, is sponsored by the Colorado Association of Law Librarians (CoALL) to assist attorneys with common problems in legal research. Readers interested in submitting research questions may send them to CoALL, Legal Research Corner, at http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall; or to: Legal Research Corner, c/o Leona Martinez, Managing Editor of The Colorado Lawyer, at leonamartinez@cobar.org.

Members of CoALL will attempt to answer as many questions as possible, either individually or as part of this department. The information provided in this space is for educational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No endorsement or recommendation is made of any product named in this department. Department coordinators are CoALL members and include Goldie Burton, Andrea Hamilton Jennifer Hammond, and Theresa (Tracy) Leming. For more information about CoALL visithttp://www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall.

About the Author:

Sergio D. Stone is the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Librarian at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law - (303) 871-6017, sstone@law.du.edu.

Spanish language use in the legal profession is on the rise.(fn1) As a result, law firms, courts, and law libraries must equip legal practitioners with the proper resources to incorporate Spanish in the practice of law. A Spanish dictionary is an important research tool, whether an attorney is counseling Spanish-speaking clients in Colorado or drafting commercial agreements in Latin America. Law Review articles over the last decade have documented the growing reliance on dictionaries by the courts; however, this scholarship has focused primarily on English-language dictionaries.(fn2)

With dozens of foreign-language dictionaries to choose from and limited guidance provided by the academic literature, one might be tempted to use free online translation services, such as Babel Fish(fn3) or Google Translate.(fn4) However, these websites should not be relied on to accurately translate legal terminology. A recent investigation into Babel Fish's ability to translate legal phrases from Spanish to English reported very few successful translations.(fn5) Until reliable and affordable translation software appears, attorneys and judges will continue to rely on print and online dictionaries for their legal work in Spanish.

This article presents the results of a study by the author involving analysis of citations to Spanish dictionaries in U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. federal court opinions. Here, the term "Spanish dictionary" is used to refer to both exclusively Spanish-language dictionaries and bilingual Spanish-English dictionaries. With dozens of legal and general usage dictionaries on the market, the study's objective was to discover those dictionaries that U.S. courts relied on most often to translate and define Spanish terms. As a means of comparison with U.S. practice, the study also examined the citation practices of courts in three Latin American jurisdictions: Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico - countries that attract many U.S. visitors and significant foreign investment.

The results of the study are meant to serve as a guide for attorneys and law librarians when purchasing Spanish dictionaries. The article provides relevant contextual information to critically analyze a court's reliance on a specific dictionary. Although the article addresses the specific uses for which U.S. courts rely on Spanish dictionaries, the purpose of the article is descriptive; no attempt is made to defend or criticize the practice of relying primarily on dictionaries to define statutory or contractual terms.(fn6)

Methodology

The study included analysis of the citations to Spanish dictionaries in opinions from the following judicial bodies: the U.S. Supreme Court (1795-2006);(fn7) the U.S. federal district courts and circuit courts of appeals (1900-2006);(fn8) the Supreme Court of Argentina (1995-2006);(fn9) the Supreme Court of Costa Rica (2000-06);(fn10) and the Supreme Court and collegiate appellate courts of Mexico (1995-2005).(fn11) The majority of the results focus on data collected from U.S court opinions. The Appendix to this article lists all of the dictionaries cited by U.S. federal district courts and circuit courts of appeals since 1900, along with the number of citations, dates of citations, and specific jurisdictions that cited them.

The results include statistics on how U.S. courts have used Spanish dictionaries; for example, whether the dictionary was used to translate contracts or define foreign legal terms. Because of the small population of cases analyzed in the foreign jurisdictions, those results are simply a snapshot and are meant to provide only a rough comparison with the results from the American courts.

The study focused on four types of Spanish dictionaries: Spanish-language legal dictionaries, Spanish-language general usage dictionaries, bilingual legal dictionaries, and bilingual general usage dictionaries. Except for business or financial dictionaries, specialized dictionaries unrelated to law, such as medical or scientific dictionaries, were disregarded. In tabulating the results, separate editions of the same dictionary were treated as one single text. Colorado state courts were excluded from the study because of the lack of any citations to Spanish dictionaries.(fn12)

U.S. Courts

From 1795 through the end of 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court cited three legal Spanish-language dictionaries(fn13) and one general usage Spanish-language dictionary(fn14) on thirteen occasions. The Supreme Court first referred to a Spanish-language dictionary in 1838(fn15) and most recently in 1929.(fn16) Because no recent Supreme Court cases have relied on Spanish dictionaries, these citations are of interest primarily for historical purposes.

Among the district courts and circuit courts of appeals, the study revealed eighty citations to thirty-two Spanish dictionaries in sixty-two court opinions (see Appendix). Of the thirty-two dictionaries cited, eight were legal dictionaries and twenty-four were general usage. The courts quoted nineteen bilingual dictionaries and thirteen Spanish-language dictionaries. No opinions referenced any topical legal Spanish dictionary, such as those devoted to law enforcement, criminal law, or immigration. Print dictionaries constituted the majority of citations; however, two court opinions used online dictionaries.(fn17) Because 65 percent of the dictionaries were cited only once, a firm consensus on the best dictionaries remains elusive. (For information about the five most frequently cited dictionaries, see the sidebar below.)

Two Tenth Circuit decisions, both involving criminal prosecutions, have cited bilingual general usage dictionaries. U.S. v. Bustillos-Muoz(fn18) used the Larousse Concise Spanish-English, English-Spanish Dictionary(fn19) to translate a term from a Spanish version of a Miranda warning. The court in U.S v. Chavez-Ceja(fn20) relied on Cassell's Spanish-English, English-Spanish Dictionary(fn21) to translate...