Opinion ID: 1740628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Chavez's Alienage

Text: Chavez next claims that his confession should have been suppressed as involuntary because his alienage, lack of prior experience with the United States criminal justice system, and limited understanding of English produced an involuntary confession. Cf. United States v. Fung, 780 F.Supp. 115, 116 (E.D.N.Y. 1992) (reflecting that Fung's poor language skills and ignorance of the American legal system were sufficient to show that she lacked understanding of Miranda rights even though she read them aloud in her native language). In this case, Chavez began the interview process speaking in English; however, Detective Murias translated all questions into Spanish from the beginning, until Estopinan entirely assumed the questioning which was conducted in Spanish (after administration of polygraph tests). Chavez's lengthy handwritten statement in Spanish (his first version of what happened to Jimmy, in which he recounted having crushed the boy accidentally against the horse farm gate), which is contained in the record, is grammatically correct, reflecting a literate person, and even contains the caveat that Chavez wished it to be considered that the dates he has included in the statement are not considered to be exact. In fact, when Chavez's formal statement was transcribed, he was careful to correct both spelling and grammatical errors. He was repeatedly advised in Spanish of his Miranda rights, and stated that he knew his polygraph test result was not admissible evidence. The record clearly reflects that Chavez's intelligence, education, and alienage did not adversely affect his understanding of his rights during the police interrogation progress. Finding no support in the record, the argument that Chavez's background caused him to misapprehend his rights in the American system fails.