Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania

is it a violation

i was charge with a attempted aggravated assualt aand other charges and at my perlimenary hearing there was no stonographer there to record the statements that.

the witnesses had made.

alot of the stament that he made i dispute and i feel that i feel that if i chose to take it to trail that it would be easy for them to cahnge their stories to woo the jury .

i was not allowed at the perlimenary to present my cahracter witness or neither did the other witneeses that claimed to see the situation alloweed to testify.

when i asked my attorney why i did not have a stenographer he stated that the county county could not afford one .

.

my question is if i was to go to trail how much of credibilty will thier staments or testimony hold.

and if based on that i could get a mistrail or a dimissal and if thats a violation of any civil rights to provide me with a fair trail


Asked on 8/17/05, 5:17 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Charles A. Pascal, Jr. Law Office of Charles A. Pascal, Jr.

Re: is it a violation

You should always take a stenographer to a preliminary hearing. I gather by your statements that you were represented by a public defender or appointed counsel. In either case, the attorney should have, if the county does not pay for stenographers, taped the proceedings so that the testimony could be transcribed in the future.

I have no idea why your witnesses weren't called, but that may be legitimate. The only purpose of the preliminary hearing is to determine if there is a prima facie case against you. That means that if the PROSECUTION witnesses are to be believed, is there a colorable violation of the law. In 99% of cases it is not appropriate to call defense witnesses at a preliminary hearing. It is CERTAINLY NOT the time for character witnesses.

As to how much credibility the statements at the preliminary hearing will have at trial--without a transcript of the testimony, that testimony for all intents and purposes doesn't exist. They can be asked if they said something inconsistent before, but without a transcript that question isn't going to go very far.

There will be no dismissal or mistrial as a result of any of this. The only possibility is to get a private attorney and ask the court to remand it back for another preliminary hearing. I don't think it's likely that this motion will be granted, however.

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Answered on 8/17/05, 8:35 pm


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