Sunday, October 08, 2006

Thanksgiving Dinner

Today in For Better or For Worse we had the hair twiddling of Elly Patterson. I was able to drop off a number of snarks about it early in the day. I had planned to participate in the giant qnjones Thanksgiving Celebration at her specified time, but my wife decided today was furniture-moving day and she invited a neighbour friend of hers husband to help me move. And that took most of the rest of the day. By the time I got back, qnjones was well into it pretty much all by herself, even though April was supposed to be present at the party. Last Canadian Thanksgiving, qnjones had requested to write up the bulk of the giant Thanksgiving conflagration herself, with others inserting in stuff, and trying not to upset her tightly balanced Becky relative apple cart. But there was a long enough gap in time from qnjones' last post, there, so I felt I could probably carry on to a certain degree, even though I don't have qnjones' manic energy for these kind of stories. I also don't have qnjones' memory for all the characterization for her Becky family members, so I felt I was limited there also.

Tomorrow's strip: Anthony and Elizabeth can't leave town because they are witnesses? I know nothing about law and I can tell that is complete baloney. I quick google of Ontario trials and their delays showed trials can be delayed upward of 30 months. Somehow I doubt restricting the travel of witnesses is allowed. Most likely, they set a new trial date and reissue the subpoenas for that date, but I was unable to find a website which specified procedure for subpoenas and delayed trials. I did find a website showing how subpoenas look, and they are quite specific on date, time and place. I can't imagine it being, "Oh anytime after this date when the trial may or may not occur." qnjones can correct me, if I am wrong, but I can't imagine it being that way.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thing is, you get a subpoena, and it's got a time on it. But trial rescheduling ALWAYS happens. Always. You can never count on that date and time. Your actual testimony might happen before or after that date. Lawyers and witnesses stay in constant contact with each other when a trial is ongoing, to figure out when and if their testimony will be given.

I am fairly certain that the law on subpoenas is that you get one, and the time and date is on it, but you are still obligated to show even if the time is not exactly accurate (within some reasonable span of time). At least this is how I have seen it work in practice.

I am getting the impression you think the time and date on the subpoena is set in stone, or extremely important, and it's definitely not. You can't just say, "Sorry judge, this subpoena said Thursday at one, and you didn't try to call me until Monday at nine--I'm not coming." Won't fly. Same thing if you were due on the stand at one pm and got called at nine am instead. (Though leeway is up to the judge.)

It's hard to tell what the deal is with the Bunt case. Has the trial started yet? How long is the postponement? One gets the sense that they are expected to testify in the near future, just not in the next week or so. But who knows? Lynn clearly knows nothing about trial procedure.

Thanks for filling in on Thanksgiving. I had no clear plan this year. I started on my own, but then real life took me away. I loved your stuff!

2:38 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Is there some sort of reasonable limit on the delay time? I found a case listed in the Toronto courts that was literally listed as delayed for 30 months, where the main point of the article was that the person being charged wanted the case to be dropped because their reputation had been ruined over the 30 months and they had no chance to correct the situation.

7:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I could be wrong, but actually, when I think about it, we never issued new subpoenas that I know of. It might be different in criminal trials or in Canada. My understanding is, the subpoena is binding, but the date in it is just a guess, and you'll be informed about any changes to the schedule by the lawyers, without a new subpoena.

The lawyer is shown telling them not to leave town. That would indicate that the trial is starting, or will be starting very shortly. Sometimes trials get delayed, but they also sometimes start early. However, you are not told to stay in town for months and months at a time. You are expected to check in with the lawyer who is going to call you if you have travel plans anytime that's, say, within a month of the trial. Once the trial starts--and this includes pretrial stuff like motions in limine and jury selection--you can't leave town.

IRL, if they were being told not to leave town, that would mean the delay is not expected to be very long, but is of indeterminate length at that time. But who knows what Lynn is thinking.

Also IRL, they would not be in the prosecutor's office for anything other than witness prep. Everything else would be handled over the phone. So if we don't hear about that, Lynn has hit a false note with this meeting, all in the name of throwing the lovebirds together.

In short, in my experience, updates to the schedule happen in an informal manner.

The 30 months case--just speaking to the subpoena issue, that's long enough that the lawyers would almost certainly issue new subpoenas, whether it's necessary or not.

Was the 30 month case civil or criminal?

8:45 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Oddly enough, it was a sexual assault case, so that is why it attracted my attention.

The reason I ask about the delay is because when I was googling for delay in Ontario courts, I found that particularly in family court issues, there were a number of websites who were very concerned in wife abuse cases, that the abusing husband would use delays in getting to trial to get his way. They referred to it as legal abuse instead of physical abuse, and apparently it's a big issue in the Toronto courts.

There were also a number of websites that mentioned a need to overall the legal system in Ontario due to excessive delays, mainly in summary (civil) trials, but also in criminal cases.

After reading all this stuff, my thought was that Lynn Johnston could be using her strip to snark the Canadian legal system. There have been some definite elements of that so far. The policeman mentions that getting a trial after one year is fast. And today the prosecutor talking about a mysterious delay for various reasons.

9:45 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home