Helping to Make Sense of the Modern-Day Babel

Serge Mergelian, a trilingual native of the former Soviet Union who works as an interpreter in Los Angeles County criminal courts, takes almost three seconds to say in Armenian the equivalent of “public defender.”

Likewise, “arraignment” has no Russian counterpart, and to get the idea across he defines the term as “the initial appearance in court at which the defendant is told the charges.”

Coming up with stand-ins for U.S. legalese isn’t half of the interpreter’s art, to hear him tell it. The real knack is speaking in one language while also memorizing what’s being said in another so he can eventually translate that.

“The judge, the D.A., everyone speaks at the same time,” he said between appearances at the Metropolitan Courthouse just south of downtown Los Angeles. “You’re sitting next to the defendant and have to translate every word that is said. It’s stressful.”

Mergelian is one of 450 interpreters working in the county courts on any given day, linguistic acrobats safeguarding the constitutional rights of defendants who speak little or no English.

Los Angeles County courts have more certified and registered interpreters--580--than anywhere else in the state. In San Diego County, there are 116; in Orange County, 104; and in Ventura County, 18.

Los Angeles court interpreters speak 104 languages and dialects, from Afghani to Gujarati to Ningbo to Zapotec Del Valle. Most in demand are Spanish language specialists, who number 325. And that’s not enough. A dozen court requests for Spanish assistance go unfilled each day.

Coming in a distant second are sign language interpreters, with 20. Unlike others, signers also appear in civil courts and interpret for jurors as well as defendants.

Rounding out the top 10 are Korean, Armenian, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Russian, Cantonese, Persian and Cambodian.

The county runs its language program out of cramped offices in the civil courts building, where half a dozen clerks field urgent phone and e-mail requests. Listed on a marker board the other day were languages for which an interpreter was needed but none was available: Thai, Japanese, Spanish.

Although many have regular assignments--two Cambodian specialists report daily to the Long Beach courthouse, for instance--Mergelian is among the large number of itinerant language workers, available at a beeper’s notice.

Born in Moscow and raised in Yerevan, he is equally fluent in Russian and Armenian. His English is lightly accented and charmed by rough-hewn imports. “You already have the vocabulary next to your mouth,” he said when asked the secret of simultaneous interpreting.

Mergelian came to Los Angeles in 1991 and labored as a security guard and interpreter while attending Southwestern University School of Law. Completing his degree in 1995, he turned to court interpreting after failing the state bar exam. For now he’d just as soon speak the law as practice it.

“This is the best job,” he said.

The other day at Metro, better known as Traffic Court, he was assigned three cases in Armenian and two in Russian. Mergelian wasn’t needed for one of the cases because an English-speaking attorney showed up in place of his Russian-speaking defendant.

A few other cases took just a minute apiece. “Guilty,” he said for an Armenian-speaking woman when asked by the judge how she pleaded to a charge of not yielding to an emergency vehicle. She stood at a lectern facing the judge, Mergelian at her side and a long shifting line of the accused behind her. “And I want to go to traffic school,” he said for her.

Much of the job entails standing around while the wheels of justice turn ever so slowly. Out of 6 1/2 hours at Metro that day, he spent about five waiting for scheduled cases to be called.

But other gigs tax the instrument.

“My longest trial was two weeks,” he recalled. “My voice by the end was gone. . . . Your voice is your professional tool. You have to be careful.”

Among interpreters, controversy exists over their status as independent contractors. The county spent $25 million in state funds on interpreters last year, which translates into a wage of $265 a day, with no paid sick leave, medical insurance, retirement program or other benefits.

Some have pressed for years to gain those benefits, and a bill in the California Senate (SB 371) calls for investigating the possibility of making interpreters state employees.

“This profession should have more benefits attached to it, and we want more say over our working conditions,” said Uri Yaval, president of the California Federation of Interpreters, which supports the bill.

On that issue, Mergelian, who is 34 and unmarried, is in what he says is the minority camp. He enjoys the free-lance life.

“I like the independence,” he said.

In his meatiest assignment at Metro the other day, he interpreted for an Armenian-speaking defendant charged with hit and run. The middle-aged man was accused of leaving an accident scene without providing license and insurance information to the other party, as the law requires.

Mergelian brokered a few brief conversations between the accused and a deputy public defender in the rear of a crowded arraignment court and later in a hallway.

Then they went to Judge Kenneth Lee Chotiner’s courtroom, where the defense, two deputy city attorneys and the judge spent an hour crafting a civil settlement under which the defendant would pay $400 to the other party.

“We’re doing this to avoid the necessity of a trial,” the public defender stage-whispered into his client’s right ear while Mergelian whispered into his left one.

Mergelian sensed that the defendant didn’t want to settle, despite the evidence against him.

“It was important for him to fight his case,” he said later. “For him it might have seemed a capitulation not to fight.”

But if the defendant was unfamiliar with the justice system’s abiding interest in compromise over confrontation (not to mention California’s rules of the road), Mergelian’s steady Armenian patter delivered the message--and helped avert a costly trial.

“It’s an ancient profession,” Mergelian said, “and being respected by everyone and seen as a facilitator is satisfying. And so is knowing different cultures and being able to represent one culture to another.”