[blindlaw] Issues Accessing the Legal System for Individuals with Communication Barriers

[Tai Blas]

Hello. I am a student writer on a law journal and intend to write an article
regarding barriers to accessing the court system for individuals with
disabilities. My basic argument is that while courts procure interpreters
for individuals with language barriers, they do not always afford the same
access to disabled individuals facing communication barriers. The idea for
this topic came from the recent Florida decision requiring courts to accept
Braille correspondence from a blind prison inmate. I have also heard
anecdotal evidence of court failure to provide interpreters for deaf
individuals here in Iowa. As a result, a court reporter had to reconfigure
the computer to allow the deaf witness to read the proceedings and the deaf
witness wrote down his responses. Thus, a proceeding that could have taken
ten minutes with an interpreter took thirty minutes without one. 

 

Can anyone point me toward cases and secondary resources on this topic?

 

Thank you.

 

Tai Blas