This paper is concerned with the faithful representation and meaning of the intercepted language of drug dealers. Although it is recognized in the law that in order to guarantee a fair trial, a non-English speaking defendant must be provided with a qualified interpreter during the courtroom proceedings, no such assurances are made for the representation of the defendant’s speech in courtroom exhibits such as written translations or conversations. In this article the author explores these problems, taking as data a series of tape-recorded conversations in Spanish that were translated into written English and used as evidence in a federal trial.