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By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Honored by the Georgia Supreme Court in June for
community service, Jesús Nerio practices both law and compassion as he
aids, educates and advocates for the equitable treatment of Latinos and all
Georgians in the court system.
Nerio, a parishioner at Transfiguration Church, Marietta, received
the Chief Justice Robert Benham Award for Community Service June 16, one of
several awards given for various circuits at the annual meeting of the State
Bar of Georgia.
“It was a big surprise. I didn’t know anything about it
until I got the call from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court call is like
Rome calling. You wonder, what did I do?” he recalled. “I like it, of
course. It feels good to be recognized by one’s peers.”
What Nerio has done is faithfully answer his divine call, becoming
a lawyer and leaving behind a distinguished career as an engineer, which
brought him to Atlanta in 1974 as chief design engineer for MARTA. He earned a
degree at Atlanta Law School and passed the bar in 1985. A successful solo
practitioner in the areas of immigration, criminal defense and domestic and
corporate law, he is the immediate past president and a trustee of the Georgia
Hispanic Bar Association. He has also been a member since 1996 of the Georgia
Supreme Court Commission on Equality, chaired by Justice Carol Hunstein, and
the Commission on Public Trust and Confidence.
Committed to ensuring that Georgia courts treat all persons fairly
and equitably, Nerio, who has completed his first year of diaconate formation,
works countless pro-bono hours assisting the underserved, whether they be
undocumented foreign nationals or battered spouses.
Having moved with his family as a teen from El Salvador to the
United States in order to get better medical care for his brother with polio,
Nerio knows firsthand where many Hispanics are coming from. His linguistic
advantage naturally compels him to help Latinos in legal difficulty, but he
also tries to increase understanding of the differences in culture and legal
procedures between the United States and other countries.
“(Hispanics) are very much at a disadvantage. We’ve been
very fortunate in being able to serve the Hispanic community through the
Hispanic Bar Association and through the Supreme Court Commission on
Equality,” Nerio said. “Just being Hispanic and being able to talk to
judges and lawyers and saying, ‘Hey, man, this is really what it’s
like,’ goes a long way. They’re not hearing this from someone in
trouble but another lawyer. It gives it a little more attention.”
For example, Nerio said, “a Hispanic, when in front of a
judge, isn’t going to look in a judge’s eyes. It’s showing
disrespect to look into a superior’s eyes.”
While this might be misunderstood by Americans, “when you
explain the cultural difference, it takes some of the sting away.”
During his term as president, and that of his predecessor Albert
Bolet, the Hispanic Bar initiated a 13-week Latino Law School, a course in
Spanish on legal system basics for laymen co-sponsored by the Atlanta Hispanic
Chamber of Commerce. An initial grant from the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation
funded it and the Hispanic Chamber provided meeting space.
Two pilot courses of the ongoing program were offered this year,
both filled to capacity. The course is tentatively scheduled to be held next in
Gainesville in January and then in Gwinnett and Clayton counties. Nerio is one
of 11 instructors and teaches criminal, domestic and immigration law. Students
learn briefly about the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act, which is retroactive and subjects long-time lawful
permanent residents to deportation for minor offenses from many years past.
People are also advised to beware of notarios, who offer
immigration support. While they are lawyers in Hispanic countries, they are not
recognized as such in the United States and may not even have a high school
diploma.
In the United States “you have the right to remain silent and
the right to an attorney, whereas in the Latin culture remaining silent is
inherently dangerous. More importantly, a plea of guilty on a criminal matter
most of the time has immigration consequences,” Nerio explained. “If
somebody’s decision is to plead guilty because all they have to do is pay
a fine and walk away ... it may make them lose their permanent residence.”
A few priests have taken the Latino Law School course “to be
able to pass this (information) on to their parishes and communities,”
said Nerio, who also represents the archdiocese in immigration matters
affecting seminarians and priests.
Nerio and Bolet also proposed a statewide certification and
training program for interpreters in Georgia courts in Spanish, Korean,
Vietnamese and Cantonese. The proposal, fine-tuned by the equality commission,
was tentatively adopted by the Supreme Court, Nerio said.
Without certified interpreters, defendants often have used
relatives or police officers, Nerios said, which is an inadequate or even
harmful situation.
“If it’s a family violence (case) and a family member is
translating that doesn’t work, and if it’s a police officer,
there’s a conflict of interest. Sometimes the translator was totally wrong
and sometimes the translator was acting like a lawyer, who makes it even
worse,” he said. “Now the translators are going to be certified and
only (serve) the court.”
Georgia judges are overworked, he said, and attorneys often
don’t have the time needed to understand immigrants’ cultures and
motives for their actions.
“A lot gets pushed down the table for the sake of
expediency,” Nerio said. “That’s not right. I think a lot of
that will change when the courts are provided with certified interpreters
because then the court will know what’s happening exactly with this
individual.”
Lawyer Chara Jackson, program director of the equality commission,
helped nominate Nerio for the award.
“It was a great opportunity for us to recognize him for all
that he does” and for being a “beacon of hope for us as far as our
profession,” she said.
“Mr. Nerio continues to be an outstanding member of our
commission and a model for the legal profession in his efforts to assure
justice for all Georgians,” she said. “He does a very good job in
showing, in addition to his duties as a lawyer, a sense of community
responsibility to the legal profession and the oath we took to uphold
justice.”
“He does so much as a member of our committee above and
beyond the call of duty. He is really the driving force behind a lot of our
projects,” she said.
Another project is to aid immigrant and other women who are
victims of domestic violence. The Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, which
Nerio serves as a board member, has started a project to help women obtain
legal protection. Sue Colussy, director of Catholic Social Services Immigration
Services, serves as a consultant.
For women who are foreign nationals, this involves help getting
green cards independent of their husbands. Nerio supported the project after
receiving many calls from women at shelters whom he lacked time to help.
“We have 15 lawyers from the very top-of-the-line law firms
that would like to get their hands dirty instead of living in an ivory tower.
They’re coming down to find out what these people need and provide it with
no cost,” he said.
While he is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Hispanics and
immigration, Nerio is quick to point out that his commitment to legal service
is color-blind and that his service stretches far beyond the Hispanic
community. Only about 20 percent of his criminal cases are Latinos.
Work for Nerio is about responding to need. About 40 percent of
his practice involves immigration issues; about six in 10 illegal immigrants
who come to him qualify for some form of relief. Cases, he said, typically
involve a hard-working couple who have been living in the United States for
several years and have children, born both here and abroad, who are good
students. The parents seek permanent residency but don’t always qualify.
“For six of them, we offer them what options are available.
For the other four, we say an Our Father with them, and then say, ‘Go back
home,’” he said. “They want to get papers and I say, ‘I
wish I could help you but I can’t.’ That’s tough.”
He particularly enjoys international and local adoption cases
where “everybody wins.”
“I think it’s wonderful. You have these children from
infancy to 10-11 years old in an orphanage. Along comes an American couple who
can provide for them.”
The 54-year-old family man is committed to his wife of 30 years,
Laurie, and two children, Ana and Michael. He also is a speaker with the
Spanish Cursillo program. And his faith is just as alive in the courtroom as in
church.
He has people pray for difficult cases and turns down cases he
morally opposes, such as when someone seeks advice on abortion or when
“somebody wants to learn how to do something illegal.”
“Even though there is attorney-client privilege, and I’m
privileged in 10 million ways, you just don’t do that. Often I walk into
the courtroom and look for the angels around the walls.”
The best part of his work is meeting some need.
“Helping people, it’s really satisfying,” he said.
“You walk out of court and a person has a temporary protection order so (a
battered woman) doesn’t get hurt. You walk out of a courtroom and somebody
who’s been falsely accused is walking out free.” |
