“Excuse me, but, do you speak English?” The courtroom was silent for several seconds. “Parlez-vous le Francais?” More silence. “Spreichen zie Deutsch?” The silence was becoming ominous.
Walters, the defence attorney, abandoned his opening remarks and returned to his client, Jeff, a young man in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. “This could prove to be a setback…” he mused, making his client all the more nervous.
“Wha…what’s happening, man?” Jeff asked, shuffling Walter’s legal papers, which had been spread neatly about the desk at which they sat, without being aware of what he was doing.
Walters grabbed the papers away from him. “Stop that!” he hissed. Then, composing himself, Walters explained, “Jeff, the judge doesn’t appear to speak English, French or German.”
Jeff squeaked, then looked around guiltily. “But…but…” he protested, “you said that I could be tried in the language of my choice, and I chose English!”
“What I said,” Walters calmly responded, “was that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that you will be heard in the language of your choice. But, according to a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling, you need not be understood.”
“But,” Jeff persisted, “what’s the point of being heard in my native language if my case isn’t understood?”
Walters sighed heavily. “Thus,” he said to nobody in particular, “a 23 year-old high school drop-out on trial for dealing drugs feels competent to question the wisdom of our entire system of justice!”
Jeff looked suitably chastised. “Alright. Is there anything we can do?”
“There is one thing I can try,” Walters said. He rose and, hesitatingly addressing the bench, asked, “Recess?”
The judge must have understood because he banged his gavel and was out of the courtroom before anybody else had a chance to rise.
“Ah,” Jeff commented. “The logic is inescapable.”
“Shut up,” Walters advised him. “I have a phone call to make.”
When court reconvened, Jeff and his lawyer had been joined by a linguistics professor from the University of Southern Ontario, Clarissa Bannister. She was fluent in 17 languages and conversant in 23 more, all of which she tried on the judge.
He didn’t respond to any of them.
“This could be tougher than I thought,” Walters remarked.
“Roger,” Bannister suggested, “this judge doesn’t seem to understand any living language with which I am familiar. Could it be possible that he speaks some sort of dead language?”
Walters looked at the judge with distaste. :In this country, I suppose anything is possible,” he replied. “What do you suggest we do?”
Bannister suggested a professor of dead languages at the university, and Walters gratefully requested, and was granted, another recess. When court again reconvened, Edward Mudd, who was fluent in 38 languages and conversant in over 100 more, most of which were no longer spoken, sat with the defence.
It took over three hours for Mudd to run through all the languages and dialects with which he was familiar. In the end, Walters and his client were no further than when they began.
“I don’t know about this, Mr. Walters…” Jeff weakly stated.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Walters muttered.
“I think I’m ready to cop a plea,” Jeff told him, hope creeping around the edges of his voice.
“Cop a plea?” Walters repeated. “Cop a plea? You miserable worm! Don’t you realize that this is bigger than whether or not you get convicted on this lousy little drug charge? Our whole concept of justice is being threatened, here!”
“I guess that means no, hunh?”
“Roger,” Mudd said, “there is one person who may be able to do something further…”
“Who’s that?” Walters anxiously asked.
“Goddard.” Walters slowly smiled.
One recess later, Goddard was in the court, hastily setting up his computers and loudspeakers. The assistant crown attorney who was prosecuting the case, Barbara Wilcough, angrily approached Walters.
“Roger!” Wilcough greeted him, far less than cordially.
“Barbara,” Walters responded.
“What’s going on, here?”
“We’re trying to determine what language the judge speaks. I think you’ll agree that it’ll help both out cases if we can actually communicate with him…”
Wilcough smoldered for a moment, then returned to her place in the court to harangue an assistant. Walters smiled grimly to himself as Goddard, obviously finished, walked over to him. “Would you like me to test anything in particular?” Goddard asked.
“I would,” Walters responded, “but I have too much respect for the court.” After a second, he added: “What are you about to do?”
“Well,” Goddard explained, “as you know, I’ve worked with animals, trying to develop, with the use of computers, an understanding of how they communicate. Most recently, of course, I was working with NASA, looking for possible ways of communicating with extraterrestrial life forms. I’m going to start with binary numerical codes, work through complex algorithms and, hopefully, make some sounds that your judge over there understands. Understand?”
“Let’s get this over with.”
Three days later, just as everybody was about to lose hope, the judge surprised them by letting out a series of whoops, whistles and guttural grunts. “Aha!” Goddard exclaimed, satisfied. “A variation of ape communications, but with a complex pattern of -“
“What did he say?” Jeff asked.
“He wanted to know why the trial is taking so long to get started,” Goddard replied.
“We can talk to him now?” Walters asked, relieved.
“I think we can probably manage it,” Goddard proudly told him. “Of course, this is far removed from my usual anthropological studies…”
“Thank you,” Walters appreciatively said. Turning to Jeff, he said, “Alright, son, let’s dispense us some justice!”