When it came time for his trial for heroin trafficking, Luis Ramos says he just wanted to get on the stand and “swear on the Bible and tell the truth and nothing but the truth.” But whether or not the jury that ultimately convicted him could understand his testimony is now in doubt. Though he can speak English, the 63-year-old Toronto man is more comfortable in his native Spanish, and so he testified for three straight days with the help of several interpreters. He maintained his innocence, that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a drug deal went down between some acquaintances and a police agent. He ended up with an eight-year prison sentence in 2014. In early November, the Ontario Court of Appeal granted the now-paroled Ramos’s appeal and ordered a new trial with the consent of the prosecution. In a brief, one-paragraph ruling, the top court said the Crown had reviewed an external assessment of the recordings of Ramos’s trial and now acknowledged that “there were numerous and significant errors in the interpretation of the appellant’s evidence in this case.”A week later, Ramos appeared in Superior Court, where the Crown decided to forego a new trial and stayed the trafficking charge. It had been hanging over his head since his arrest in 2010.“I knew I was winning because, from the very beginning, I was telling them I was innocent,” Ramos told the Star in a recent interview about his successful appeal, which he filed while still an inmate. “I never did this stupid thing.” His case shines a spotlight on the court interpretation system in Ontario — one that has faced heavy criticism in the past from judges and the legal profession. “For years, the Ministry of the Attorney General has failed to provide an adequate supply of properly qualified interpreters. Some interpreters have failed to meet the high competency threshold necessary to guarantee fairness in the court proces ...
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