Due process does not require a certified interpreter when the State plays a jury the recording of a police interview conducted through an uncertified interpreter, if the trial judge finds enough safeguards that the translation is reliable. The court affirmed the conviction. The Fourth District Court of Appeal decided that on October 21, 2026, in Torres v. State, No. 4D2025-2554.
The case. Jose Marcial Torres was convicted of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, a knife, in Palm Beach County. The evidence was that he hit the victim in the head with a beer bottle outside a store, drove home, came back with a knife, and hit him again. After his arrest a sergeant interviewed him, and a community service officer interpreted. She was not a certified interpreter.
At trial she testified, without objection, that Torres admitted stabbing the victim. She said she translated “word for word,” or as she put it, “for the most part,” and that she was fluent in Spanish and Torres understood and answered every question. Torres took the stand and denied confessing. The State then offered the videos of the interview. Torres objected that the lack of a certified interpreter violated due process and that the translation was not accurate. The trial judge overruled him, noting that Torres answered the questions appropriately, so “the interactions, in a sense, verify the translation.”
Two questions on appeal. Torres argued (1) that the Due Process Clauses of the federal and Florida constitutions require a certified interpreter, and (2) that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the videos.
Due process. The court said no. It found persuasive the Tenth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Silva-Arzeta, where an uncertified detective testified about statements in Spanish. A certified interpreter may be “best practice,” that court said, but “due process does not require so much.” The Fourth District agreed. Torres relied on Rivera v. State, 182 So. 3d 861 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016), and Tehrani v. State, 764 So. 2d 895 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000), but the court said those cases only recognize a defendant’s right to an interpreter to understand and talk to counsel in court. The court also declined to expand due process: quoting Dowling v. United States, judges are not free to impose their “personal and private notions” of fairness in defining due process.
Admissibility. Rulings on translated evidence are reviewed for abuse of discretion. The court had approved uncertified interpreters before when procedural safeguards let the other side test the translation’s accuracy and the interpreter’s bias (Fernandez v. State, 21 So. 3d 155 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009)). It contrasted Mendez-Martinez v. State, 232 So. 3d 5 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017), where safeguards were inadequate because the translator was the person responsible for the investigation, gave no pretrial translation, and translated the video for the first time on the witness stand. Here:
- The officer had no investigative role.
- She testified to her fluency and that Torres understood and answered her.
- The recorded interview was available to the defense before trial, so counsel could check the translation.
- Nothing showed bias or any interest in the outcome.
- She did not translate the video for the first time on the stand.
The trial judge acted as gatekeeper, and the appeals court found no abuse of discretion.
Two footnoted points. The statute on interpreters, section 90.606, covers interpreters in judicial proceedings, not an interview with law enforcement. And Torres cited no governing authority requiring a certified transcript of the video before it could be admitted. Another footnote says a twelve-person-jury claim was not preserved and that the court had rejected the argument in Guzman v. State, 350 So. 3d 72, with a “but see” cite to Kian v. State, 421 So. 3d 439 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), where the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari on June 15, 2026.
What defense lawyers can take from it (the author’s reading). The fight is about the safeguards, not certification: who the interpreter was, whether the defense had the recording early enough to have it checked, and whether the interpreter was involved in the investigation. The court also noted that Torres did not object when the officer first testified to the translated admission, and it suggested that may have waived a later objection to the videos, though it did not rest its decision on waiver.
Panel: Judges Levine (author), Klingensmith and Lott. The opinion is not final until any timely motion for rehearing is decided.
Source: Torres v. State, No. 4D2025-2554 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct. 21, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.