I received a subpoena requesting me to be a witness for the defense. The attorney requested that I produce a variety of documents related to death penalty cases (written procedures, criteria for indictment as a capital case, any document that relates in "any way" to the decision to seek the death penalty, office budget for the last 5 years, list of all capital cases for the last 15 years and a copy of the judgements).
I am not the prosecutor in this case. The defendant has never had a case in my county. This subpoena came from a neighboring county requesting me to testify in a pending capital trial there.
Has anyone had any experience with this type of request? I think I know what's going on here, but wanted to see if anyone else has been through this.
Regards,
John L. Pool County & District Attorney Andrews, Texas
We had the same thing happen to us, and in Lubbock and in Ft. Worth. I believe that each of the subpoenas were quashed. Send me an e-mail or fax number and I'll send our motion to you.
I recently got such a subpoena to appear from Williamson County in a capital murder case in Hays County. I did an affidavit and the DA got the subpoena quashed. It also recently was done in Smith County and was quashed.
would you all send the motion and the responses to us here at TDCAA? We can put it on the site here and maybe put something in the newsletter on this so folks are ready for it when it comes to them....
A similar situation was addressed in Tyler recently and posted in the "issues in prosecution section. Following is the text from the archived "issues in prosecution":
Dozen DA's Dismissed from Tyler Cap Case A district judge in Tyler dismissed almost a dozen district attorneys from a capital case where they had been subpoenaed by the defense. The defense counsel hoped to prove through their testimony that there was no statewide standards to seeking the death penalty in Texas, which would allegedly make its enforcement arbitrary and capricious under the US Supreme Court election case Bush v. Gore. The judge disagreed and found that defense counsel had abused its subpoena power.
The judge found that allowing DA's to be forced to testify in these situations would "open the door to the interruption of justice" all over Texas, and possibly the United States. "That would bring justice in Texas to a halt because DAs would be subpoenaed every week."
Check out the whole story at the Houston Chronicle website here.
I received subpoenas as well. Reagan and Upton Counties. I filed a motion to quash yesterday. Look at the Darnell case I think it was 960/838. I found it helpful.
Not to go off on a tangent, but maybe we should follow the feds or civil courts and ask for creation of sanctions in criminal court regarding frivolous motions or subpoenas??
Prosecutors already get sanctioned with dismissals and reversals if we "do something wrong," but there is nothing to sanction the defense. Example in addition to this case: after having the judge grant a motion for disclosure of experts, the defense counsel provided a list of 40 experts. Luckily, 99% of defense lawyers would not do this, but it might stop this sort of an abuse by the 1% that would?
Posts: 68 | Location: Hempstead, Texas, USA | Registered: June 23, 2001
Check out article 1.052, Code of Criminal Procedure. Sanctions may be imposed by the trial court on an attorney who files a groundless motion in bad faith and for an improper purpose.
Furthermore, repeated violation should justify a grievance.
To download a sample motion to quash, go to "Legal Resources" on the TDCAA home page, enter "subpoena" in the search field (make sure the pull down menu is "criminal") and hit "submit." When you reach the search results screen, click on the Word document to download.
Thanks to Jim Huggler of Smith County for submitting this motion.
Posts: 2429 | Location: TDCAA | Registered: March 08, 2002
I have filed my motion to quash. Many thinks to Jim Huggler for providing me with a motion. I have made some minor changes to the motion itself, if anyone would like a copy please feel free to email me.
