Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: A cop has steped out of line !

There really isn't much of a problem here. The facts you have provided show no reason to think that the officer "stepped out of line" and no basis for a defense motion.

Witness statements are usually written by a police officer based upon an interview with the witness. When a witness disagrees with something the officer wrote, the officer will typically make the appropriate changes and present it to the witness again. This process can be repeated several times before the witness agrees with what is on the page and signs it. It is quite possible that the delay in signing the second witness statement in your case was caused this way.

Something similar typically happens with declarations or affidavits in civil cases. These documents are almost always drafted by the lawyers based upon their discussions with the declarants / affiants. The signature indicates only that the person vouches for the accuracy of the statement, not that he was its author.

It is possible, of course, that the officer pressured the witness into signing something he didn't completely agree with. It is also possible that the statement contains an innocent mistake which the witness didn't notice, or that it is defective for other reasons. Defense counsel can cross-examine the witness to explore these possibilities. But unless something like that turns up, the fact that the officer was the one who typed it up won't matter.

Keep in mind that witnesses typically feel burdened by the role they must play in an investigation. Making them type up their own statements would increase this burden substantially. Many witnesses wouldn't cooperate, and many others would write something perfunctory just to get the process over with. We want our courts to have reasonably complete information, and having the police write up the witness statements is a way to further this goal.

On top of that, most witnesses wouldn't have a clue what to write even if they were enthusiastic about cooperating. Any given crime has a legal definition, and it is important that witness statements show (to the extent the witness can back this up) that the definition has been satisfied. An officer who knows the definition can ask questions about each element of the crime and include the responses in the written statement. A layperson would not know the definition and thus would not know what to say. The result would likely be a useless statement -- which would then need multiple rounds of revisions, thus further burdening the witness. Such a system would not function very well.

What matters is whether the witness stands behind the statement that he signed, not whether he wrote it himself. There is no problem unless the witness says a material part of the statement is wrong. Even then, that would just add a wrinkle to the evidence and would not be grounds for a mistriall