Love-Hate Mail
Mute justice
Although I cannot (rather,
should not) comment on a current case (Quinteros matter), I must agree
with attorney Jerry Gonzalez’s acknowledgment (Love/Hate Mail, Nov. 29)
of widespread problems with interpreters (“Language Barrier,” Nov. 22).
I also wrote a certified letter to a certain local judge and likewise
received no response concerning a serious issue implicating basic
constitutional rights violations and an interpreter. In that case, I
consulted with an immigration client moments after he was advised by a
certain certified interpreter to plead guilty with no input from his
public defender. I met the interpreter when she arrived to the tank to
interpret with a probation officer after the hearing. The probation
officer told me that this was his judge and she would never let me go
into the courtroom to withdraw the client’s guilty plea. Then the
probation officer asked the guard to terminate my consultation with the
detained client—which he did—and told me this was his case because we
were paying the interpreter! I then showed my bar card to the court
officer guarding the door, and the guard denied my entry into the court
and stated that the court had been closed by order of the judge. Upon
reading my letter reporting this entire event, this judge should have
been shocked, but rather did not respond. Putting these incestuous,
nepotistic and serious abuses of the best legal system of justice in
the civilized world aside, there are widespread problems in
representing foreign nationals in our local courts. I hope Mr. Gonzalez
(awesome lawyer) follows through with litigation on this problem. Maybe
then, someone will listen.
SEAN LEWIS
Sean@SeanLewisAttorney.com (Nashville)
Locked, not loaded
I would bet that the
railroad (and tracks) were there well before the Sadler Avenue
neighborhood or any of its inhabitants (“A Neighborhood Railroaded,”
Nov. 15). I would also bet that the folks who developed the
neighborhood did it because the land was cheap: It is landlocked by the
railroad. The current inhabitants probably live there because they
bought their homes in the neighborhood cheap or the rent there is
cheap: It is landlocked by the railroad. They must have known it when
they elected to move there, since you can only get there by crossing
the railroad tracks!
It reminds me of people who build, buy or rent in the floodplain, and then want the government to bail them out when they
get flooded.
DAVIS CARR
dcar@bccb.com (Nashville)
Art irritates life
With the publication of a
single photo, you’ve nailed the parking problem in the “compact cars
only” sections of Belle Meade Plaza (Public Art, Nov. 29). The
situation is especially bad in the Kroger lot. Kroger management used
to prevail on Mallory Security to enforce the lot manager’s (Robin
Realty) own rules. Now Kroger—locally, regionally (Louisville) and
nationally (Cincinnati)—is turning a blind eye to safety concerns, as
is Robin Realty. I’m not happy to be told by Kroger management that I
should utilize valet parking or park in the Plaza’s garage when I
purchase more groceries than I can walk with for more than a couple of
blocks. Unless the lot owners enforce their own rules, when the new
neighborhood Harris-Teeter and Publix open, I will be taking my
business there.
In
the meantime, I’m urging other Belle Meade Plaza patrons to call Robin
Realty’s Jim Blumberg at 351-0303. While taking my own advice hasn’t
helped me up to now, perhaps awareness that more than one customer is
unhappy will force some change.
STACY HARRIS
4215 Harding Road (Nashville)
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