Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Subpoena

You can ask the District Attorney to place you "On Call". This way you don't have to sit around and wait to see if you will be called as a witness on the date the subpoena requires you to be there. There is a strong possibility any subpoenaed witnesses would be ordered back by the Judge if the matter does not go forward on the date of the subpoena. You may want to check with the DA's office to see if you qualify to be placed on call (you must be able to appear within a specified time such as 2 hours). The other question would be if you were served properly. You said the subpoena was left with an employee that put it on your desk. Most subpoenas must be served personally. If your employee was authorized to receive service in your absence, then it is valid. Additionally, if they had tried to serve you several times and were unable, they could sub-serve, as long as your employee was over the age of 18.

Re: Subpoena

I agree with Mr. Nelson's answer and have a couple of points to add. First, it doesn't matter at all whether you believe a trial is going to help the victim. The propriety of a criminal prosecution is not subject to the opinions of witnesses.

Second, while I sympathize with your feeling that requiring you to spend your time away from work is unfair, that is not a valid reason to get out of testifying. Most of us are very busy, and if being busy excused people from testifying then there would be few successful trials of any kind -- either civil or criminal. If you are ever the victim of a crime the governemnt will be able to compel witnesses to appear in court, and you will be able to do the same if you are ever a party to a civil suit -- whether you are the plaintiff or the defendant.

Our justice system depends on the compulsory appearance of witnesses, and the Constitution expressly provides for this. The occasional inconvenient court date is a price we all pay for having the system available to protect our interests when we need it.