Witness to testify in court

slowbird

slowbird

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I have 2 court dates coming up this week to testify against a drunk driver I called in last year. Long story short I followed the impaired for awhile giving constant updates to dispatch until the OPP showed up and pulled him over. (He was crazy impaired. I'm surprised he didn't kill anyone)

Oddly enough I have 2 court dates. Wednesday and Friday.

Does anyone have any experience with stuff like this?
Can I call the crown ahead of time and at the very least confirm if the court dates are still a go?

The court is over an hour away and I'd hate to waste my time for nothing.
(don't get me wrong. I'm willing to take the time to make sure the ******* gets charged but I'm just trying to minimize any possible inconveniences to myself if I can)
 
The legal system is notoriously user-unfriendly. You can try calling the court, but odds are, they will keep that court date come hell or high water, even if there remains a very good chance that the case will be adjourned until a later date. There is no chance of finding out in advance that someone wants an adjournment.

If you had to travel more than a certain distance, you'll get paid a pittance to cover a trivial fraction of your costs.

There is also a very good chance that the police have all the evidence necessary to convict on their own, without calling upon you. But you still have to be there if you were called to attend - you just won't actually have to do anything. (that's what happened when I was put in the same position that you're in)
 
Like Brian said. Make sure you take your subpoena to the cashier and get your pay.
 
Yeah I thought it was a long shot but wanted to make sure.

Thanks for the info :)

FullMotoJacket said:
Like Brian said. Make sure you take your subpoena to the cashier and get your pay.
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Ahh crap! I gotta find my Subpoena now.
 
It's not a lot. Last time I was subpoenaed to testify in court was in the late 80s in Niagara and it was something like $30ish. No idea what it is now. My girlfriend was subpoenaed as well, and she was at Lakehead at the time of the trial. They flew her in to Pearson for the trial and paid me mileage to pick her up and take her back to the airport for her return flight. It was the going rate, ended up being just shy of a couple of hundred bucks for the 2 trips. Again, that was 30 years ago. They may have lowered the per km rate since then.
 
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As inconvenient as it is (and Brian is completely right about the system being user-unfriendly) the problem is that case law has pretty much set up the situation that the Crown must be able to proceed at any and all opportunities. If it isn't it could be ruled an unreasonable delay and thereby violate the accused's right to a speedy trial whereas if the defence was missing something or someone on trial day, well to proceed without that element would be viewed as a violation of the accused's right to a fair trial.

Where your evidence may not be required for the police to establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for conviction, you can be sure that a defence lawyer, upon realizing that you're not there, would all of a sudden want to question your evidence.

slowbird said:
I have 2 court dates coming up this week to testify against a drunk driver I called in last year. Long story short I followed the impaired for awhile giving constant updates to dispatch until the OPP showed up and pulled him over. (He was crazy impaired. I'm surprised he didn't kill anyone)

Oddly enough I have 2 court dates. Wednesday and Friday.

Does anyone have any experience with stuff like this?
Can I call the crown ahead of time and at the very least confirm if the court dates are still a go?

The court is over an hour away and I'd hate to waste my time for nothing.
(don't get me wrong. I'm willing to take the time to make sure the ******* gets charged but I'm just trying to minimize any possible inconveniences to myself if I can)
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all the advice.

I got $0.30/km for travel costs and if I ate something during the lunch break and kept the receipt apparently they would have covered that too.
 
I don't know unfortunately.

They spent the entire morning arguing as the defense was trying to get an adjournment. (It was already 1 year to the day from the night the guy was busted.)
3 hours later I was the first witnessed called. Then half way through the Crown asking me questions the Judge adjourned for 5 minutes. Then during the Defense asking me questions they adjourned for an hour lunch.
I was there long enough. I wanted to go.

The guy had one of the most expensive Impaired driving attorneys in Canada defending him and looked like they were pulling all the stops.
His questions to me on the stand were annoying and seemed really repetitive. Had me looking at pictures of the route I followed the impaired and showed me the same route on a google maps print out.

After my testimony there were 4 OPP officers waiting to give their statements. I would have been there all day.

The accused was a Peel Regional Police officer, another reason I didn't want to stick around.
 
slowbird said:
The guy had one of the most expensive Impaired driving attorneys in Canada defending him and looked like they were pulling all the stops.
His questions to me on the stand were annoying and seemed really repetitive. Had me looking at pictures of the route I followed the impaired and showed me the same route on a google maps print out.

After my testimony there were 4 OPP officers waiting to give their statements. I would have been there all day.

The accused was a Peel Regional Police officer, another reason I didn't want to stick around.
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My only trackable scenario is one of a Peel cop getting hauled home by his buddies several times before they told him the next time he was on his own. He quit the force IIRC.

Were the four officers defense or prosecution witnesses?
 
op, i'd strongly suggest you say nothing further about this case here
 
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nobbie48 said:
Were the four officers defense or prosecution witnesses?
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Prosecution.

yodude said:
op, i'd strongly suggest you say nothing further about this case here
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May I ask why?Then trail has already concluded. I was told not to discuss anything about it during the trial.
Besides, I'm not gonna get into the details here.
 
FullMotoJacket said:
It's not a lot. Last time I was subpoenaed to testify in court was in the late 80s in Niagara and it was something like $30ish. No idea what it is now. My girlfriend was subpoenaed as well, and she was at Lakehead at the time of the trial. They flew her in to Pearson for the trial and paid me mileage to pick her up and take her back to the airport for her return flight. It was the going rate, ended up being just shy of a couple of hundred bucks for the 2 trips. Again, that was 30 years ago. They may have lowered the per km rate since then.
Click to expand...

If you were a witness to an event the compensation sucks. It's a whole different matter if they call you in as an expert. You charge your going rate.
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