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Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

imputado directo

English translation:

perpetrator (accused or defendant)

Added to glossary by Michael Powers (PhD)
Nov 28, 2018 10:54
5 yrs ago
14 viewers *
Spanish term

imputado directo

Spanish to English Law/Patents Law (general) bulldoozer
This is in a document from Costa Rica regarding a criminal complaint.

Mario ...., mayor, casado, ... con cédula de identidad número ..., en condición de querellado e imputado directo.


Thank you ahead of time.
Proposed translations (English)
3 +3 principal (accused or defendant)
4 direct defendant
3 +1 directly implicated
3 Main suspect under investigation

Discussion

Sandro Tomasi Dec 5, 2018:
querellado e imputado directo principal defendant named in the prosecutor's complaint and in the private prosecutor's complaint.

IMO, it is vital that the English speaker know that the defendant has been charged in a criminal case as well as in a quasi-tort case.

Again, the source terms are crimpro, and the English terms, perpetrator and principal (as a noun) are criminal.
Robert Carter Dec 5, 2018:
My impression is that the prosecution (or perhaps the court?) is characterizing the person as being subject to a private prosecution (querella, and therefore querellado), hence the "defendant," and is being signalled as the "perpetrator" (principal in the first degree) rather than the "abettor" (principal in the second degree) (imputado directo).

So, you would have:

Mario ...., of legal age, married, ... identity card number..., as defendant in this private prosecution and perpetrator (or principal in the first degree).

I don't think "defendant" or "accused" is the implication, as this has already been stated as "querellado" here and would be redundant; rather, it is characterizing the person's degree of criminal culpability.
Robert Carter Dec 5, 2018:
@Michael As Sandro says, "principal" is indeed a criminal-law term, and especially in the US, cf. Bryan Garner (Modern Legal Usage):

"At common law, principal in the first degree = the perpetrator of a crime; principal in the second degree = one who helped at the time of a crime; accessory before the fact = one who successfully incited a felony; and accessory after the fact = one who, knowing a felony had been committed, tried to help the felon escape punishment."

In another entry on "perpetrator," Garner further clarifies the four terms described above:

"Perpetrators are principals in the first degree.
Abettors are principals in the second degree.
Inciters are accessories before the fact.
Criminal protectors are accessories after the fact."
Sandro Tomasi Dec 5, 2018:
@Michael Just read your grading comment and the word you chose, "perpetrator," is a synonym for "principal." They are both criminal-law terms, and what you need is a criminal-procedure-law term.

Charles' suggestion, principal defendant, is applicable to crimpro because principal is being used as an adjective and defendant is the noun.
Manuel Cedeño Berrueta Nov 30, 2018:
Thank you, Robert; “prime suspect” was the idea I had in mind when I said “main suspect” (https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/prime-suspect/)
Robert Carter Nov 29, 2018:
On re-reading this, the context would seem to imply that "querellado" should be translated as "defendant" (or "defendant under private prosecution", if you feel the need to specify that fact) and "imputado directo" as "prime suspect" (per Manuel's idea) or "principal" (per Charles'), thereby qualifying the nature of the defendant here, which seems to be what the source text is doing at this point.
Sandro Tomasi Nov 29, 2018:
You're welcome, Manuel. Cheers!
Manuel Cedeño Berrueta Nov 29, 2018:
Thank you, Sandro, for your well-informed and enriching comments
Sandro Tomasi Nov 28, 2018:
... uses them correctly. So sometimes you will see imputado being said at trial or sentencing, which is not technically correct.

Costa Rica has reformed its criminal-procedure laws to an adversarial system. So I would translate imputado as defendant. The only thing I've managed to dig up on "directo," which applies to this context is the following:

Nuestra opinión es que si su familia sabía de donde venía el dinero, debe de pagar ante la justicia ya sea como cómplice o como imputado directo.
http://lanzarotecorrupta.blogspot.com/2010/04/todo-queda-en-...

Here we see that the term is juxtaposed with the term accomplice. Therefore, principal kind of applies, but the term opens up a can of worms in English.

There is no easy way out of this one. I would lean towards just translating as imputado directo as defendant. If it's necessary to be explicit, I would translate the term as principal defendant, as Charles has suggested.
Sandro Tomasi Nov 28, 2018:
Imputado directo is a bad term to begin with, IMHO. With it, they are trying to take a criminal-law concept (principal) and dress it up in criminal-procedure-law nomenclature (defendant).

The term imputado is, indeed, a suspect under the inquisitorial legal system. However, there is some debate among the doctrinistas from the new adversarial systems as to whether an imputado should be considered as a mere "suspect" or a "defendant." My approach is to translate imputado as "defendant" if the term comes from and adversarial system since this person has legal rights (presumed innocent, right to a bail hearing, etc.) much like one would in a common-law system.

Venezuelan Criminal Procedure Code (adversarial system):
Artículo 124. Imputado. Se denomina imputado a toda persona a quien se le señale como autor o partícipe de un hecho punible, por un acto de procedimiento de las autoridades encargadas de la persecución penal conforme lo establece este Código. Con el auto de apertura a juicio, el imputado adquiere la calidad de acusado.

Even though there is a clear distinction bet. imputado and acusado, not everyone in the Spanish-speaking world (cont.)
Michael Powers (PhD) (asker) Nov 28, 2018:
I know that "imputado" usually means "accused" or "suspect". It is the "directo" that has given me doubts. To this point, the best answer is "directly implicated"

Proposed translations

+3
1 hr
Selected

principal (accused or defendant)

I take it that "directo" means this and "indirecto" would apply to accomplices, accessories or conspirators. I'm putting medium confidence because I am not totally sure that these distinctions correspond. But assuming they do, more or less, the word we want is "principal", I think:

"Under criminal law, a principal is any actor who is primarily responsible for a criminal offense. Such an actor is distinguished from others who may also be subject to criminal liability as accomplices, accessories or conspirators."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_(criminal_law)

"Principal [...]
In criminal law. A chief actor or perpetrator, as distinguished from an “accessary." A principal in the first degree is he that is the actor or absolute perpetrator of the crime; and in the second degree, he who is present, aiding and abetting the fact to be done."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Black's_Law_Dictionary_(...

An example of "imputado directo" from Costa Rica:

"En este sentido, manifiesta que desde el 5 de mayo del año en curso, 6 fiscales de fraudes lo indagaron por diferentes causas, pero en ninguna de ellas figura como imputado directo, sino en calidad de co-encartado, junto a una serie de acusados."
https://vlex.co.cr/vid/-499052018
Peer comment(s):
agree Robert Carter : I think this is the right idea. The problem is, an accomplice can be a principal in the second degree (abettor). Better to say "perpetrator", I believe, but other contributors (Sandro and Rebecca hopefully) will have a better idea of this than me.
2 hrs
Thanks, Robert. Yes, I dare say this could be refined.
agree Sandro Tomasi : Agree. But your vlex citation muddies the waters: imputado directo, sino ... co-encartado > sole defendant, rather ... co-defendant? // I'll be clearer: I'm sure of co-defendant; not sure @ "sole" def.
10 hrs
Thanks, Sandro :-) I'm really not sure what they mean by co-encartado there. Maybe it's an abettor, as Robert suggests.
agree Richard Vranch
1 day 15 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Your explanation is very good. But in the US, at least, "principal" would not fit well in criminal law, so I am going to change it to " perpetrator." Thank you once again for the references and thorough answer."
25 mins

direct defendant

"imputado directo" is the person against whom a court case is conducted, the one who is accussed of doing some crimes, or wrong actions. Therefore I suggest "direct defendant".
Reference:

http://dle.rae.es/?id=L9juQCN

Peer comment(s):
neutral AllegroTrans : how would this person be a defendant at complaint stage??
4 hrs
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+1
19 mins

directly implicated

It really means "accused", but implicated/involved might work better, depending on the offence or misdemeanour in question.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 21 mins (2018-11-28 11:16:03 GMT)
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It could also mean "indicted", depending again on the legal jurisdiction and severity of the offence.

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Note added at 7 hrs (2018-11-28 18:28:34 GMT)
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Business Ethics and Values: Individual, Corporate and International ...
https://books.google.es/books?isbn=0273716166
Colin Fisher, ‎Alan Lovell - 2009 - ‎Business & Economics
... to do with the scale of the fraud at Enron and the ease with which it was possible to identify key individuals at the top who were directly implicated in the fraud.
Reference:

https://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles/search?source=auto&query=imputado

Peer comment(s):
agree AllegroTrans : good solution cos we don’t know whether this has reached court yet
4 hrs
The "perp"... :)
Something went wrong...
8 hrs

Main suspect under investigation

Main suspect under investigation
I usually translate “imputado” as “suspect under investigation”.
I copy below part of an interesting article about the similarities and differences between imputados, procesados, investigados, acusados and encausados; Rebecca Jowers has also written about these terms on her blog, but I cannot find it right now.

Investigado (hasta la LO 13/2015, imputado)
Es la persona contra la que se dirige la instrucción. Este individuo, que hasta ese momento no es más que un sospechoso, adquiere la condición de investigado (o imputado) desde el momento en que se admite a trámite una denuncia o querella contra él. Si el proceso se inicia con una denuncia, se le denominará también denunciado y, si se inicia con una querella, querellado.
[Investigados, encausados, imputados y otra terminología procesal – (http://javiersancho.es/2017/04/04/investigados-encausados-im...]
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