New Mexico Supreme Court Rules: Non-English Speakers Have Right to Serve

Usted no habla inglés? No importa! Tiene que servir! The New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously Monday that prospective jurors cannot be dismissed from a case because of an inability to speak English, Fox News reports.

The ruling comes in response to an appeal case made by Michael Anthony Samora, an Albuquerque man who was convicted for a crime spree in 2004 that included the murder of his girlfriend, an armed robbery, and a stabbing.

Samora's attorneys argued that the Bernalilo County judge who presided over the case acted unconstitutionally when he dismissed a Spanish-speaking prospective juror for not speaking English. The New Mexico Supreme Court agreed with the assessment, but did not overturn the conviction and sentencing, arguing that the defense team was silent at the time and should have made the objection then, during the jury selection process, rather than after sentencing.

With a Hispanic/Latino population just under 50 percent, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Latinos by population in the U.S.

New Mexico was part of the Republic of Mexico until well into the 19^th century, when it joined the United States. As a result, many citizens at the time only spoke Spanish and the state's constitution - written into law in 1911 - gives explicit protections to Spanish speakers. However, New Mexico's linguistic protections don't just apply to Spanish speakers. A 2002 ruling by the same court also stated that Navajo speakers can't be dismissed from jury service based an inability to speak English or Spanish. At just over 24,000 square miles, the American Indian Navajo Nation - which exists between the borders of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah - is the size of West Virginia and is the largest Indian reservation in the United States.

Linguistic problems for the Southwest - and how to deal with them - continue to baffle states with ever growing Hispanic/Latino populations. Although English remains the dominant language, the U.S. has no official language. Still, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States than there are speakers of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Hawaiian, and the American Indian languages combined.