Benavides

MEMORANDUM **

I

Walter Benavides argues that (1) the use of an inaccurate translation of taped interviews between the police and certain witnesses violated his due process right to be convicted on the basis of accurate testimony and (2) his trial and appellate counsels’ failures to challenge the translations or to order alternate translations violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

II

The jury convicted Benavides on the basis of the sworn, written statements of the witnesses whose conversations with the police were allegedly mistranslated, those witnesses’ live testimony at trial, the testimony of other witnesses at trial, and police ballistics reports. The jury heard the witnesses themselves retract their earlier, tape-recorded statements to police. Because of this last fact in particular, Benavides has not shown that the inaccuracies he claims to have identified in the translated audiotapes “had [a] substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 631 , 113 S.Ct. 1710 , 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993) (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 , 66 S.Ct. 1239 , 90 L.Ed.…