Boston Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Massachusetts trial judges have discretion over whether the Commonwealth must produce an English transcript before a recorded Spanish-language interrogation is used at trial. An Appeals Court decision issued August 7, 2026 declined to turn that discretion into a requirement and upheld a Framingham District Court conviction where no transcript was ever prepared. Commonwealth v. Figueroa, No. 25-P-1027, reaches anyone facing Massachusetts assault and battery charges whose statements to police were taken in a language the courtroom did not run in.
Under Commonwealth v. Portillo, 462 Mass. 324 (2012), a judge may order the Commonwealth to give defense counsel an English transcription of a recorded foreign-language interview and may exclude the statements if none is produced. That discretion is not a rule of automatic exclusion. A judge can keep those statements out of the prosecution’s case and still allow the interrogating officer to describe them later, in rebuttal, if the person charged decides to testify.
A Framingham Park Fight and an Untranslated Recording
Two brothers were drinking in a Framingham park when a man drove up, argued with them, returned from his car with a metal pipe, and struck both of them in the head. Police found them bleeding and arrested him in Ashland the same day.
A Spanish-speaking detective interviewed him in Spanish after booking. The interview was recorded in audio and video and turned over in discovery, but the Commonwealth never prepared an English transcription of it. The trial judge barred the prosecution from using the statements in its case-in-chief and warned that testifying might change that. He testified, with a Spanish interpreter, that the brothers had knives and that he defended himself with a tree branch. The detective then testified in rebuttal that neither the knives nor the branch had come up during the recorded interview. The jury convicted on one count and acquitted on the other.
Why the Transcript Rule Stayed Discretionary
The reasoning behind Portillo is practical. Without a translated transcript, a prosecutor cannot confirm whether an officer’s account of the interview rests on an accurate translation or an accurate memory, which touches the Commonwealth’s obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence. The Supreme Judicial Court has separately required that interviews conducted through interpreter services be recorded.
The Appeals Court held that extending Portillo into an automatic rule is for the Supreme Judicial Court or the Legislature, not an intermediate appellate court. It added that a judge on these facts could properly have refused to let the officer testify to the statements without a translated transcript, and that prudence would favor translating the interview and giving defense counsel a copy.
What sank the appeal was the state of the record. Nothing showed the detective mistranslated anything or that his memory failed, no continuance was requested to have the recording translated, and no claim was made that cross-examination was hampered. Patrick J. Murphy has defended criminal cases in Suffolk County and the surrounding district courts since 1994, and those are the objections that have to be built at the motion hearing rather than raised for the first time on appeal.
Testifying Can Reopen Statements a Judge Kept Out
Impeachment is the use of a witness’s earlier words to undermine the testimony that same witness gives at trial. A person who voluntarily takes the stand waives the privilege against self-incrimination and can be impeached like any other witness, and evidence properly excluded from the prosecution’s case may still be admissible in rebuttal.
That trade is the decision every person facing charges has to make with counsel before the defense rests. General Laws c. 265, § 15A(b) punishes assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon by up to 10 years in state prison or two and a half years in a house of correction, a fine of up to $5,000, or both. A self-defense account the jury never hears is worth little, and one contradicted by an untranslated recording can cost more than silence would have.
Contact a Boston Lawyer About Statements You Made to Police
The Law Office of Patrick J. Murphy defends assault and weapons charges in the Boston Municipal Court and the district courts of Suffolk, Middlesex, and the surrounding counties, and the office handles cases in English and Spanish. Consultations are free. Call (617) 367-0450 or contact the office to go over what was said during your interview and who was listening.