Can I get a witness!? I’m gonna be a witness!
11Got a scary envelope in the mail today summoning me to a trial in two weeks, where I’ll be a witness for a case about a traffic accident I saw a month or so ago.
As near as I can tell from the summons, I’m a witness for the defendant.
Here’s what happened: Walking down the street around 10:30pm, I looked up to see a horrendous accident. One car T-boned another, chaos ensued, and there was a lot to take in. But I was pretty sure I saw that the light along the street I was on was solid red, so the car that got t-boned had run the red light. But the city is prosecuting the t-boner (ha!), so apparently they think she was the one driving through a red light.
ANYWAY, I’m excited to be a witness! I’ll try not to lie, so help me Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
Do any of y’all have experience in a courtroom you’d like to share?
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Take a good, absorbing, longish, traditional physical book, whose topic is unrelated to any issues likely to be raised at trial.
I was actually a deputy Court Clerk for two years, the person that sits beside the judge in court and keeps track of all the paperwork. Be calm be confident be truthful. Be polite to the judge. They like to feel like little gods in their courtrooms. You’ll spend a whole lot more time waiting than testifying.
@moondrake thanks, that’s some sensible advice.
I’ve never been a witness but I’ve been a juror TOO many times. Plan your parking and know a good place for lunch. I assume you don’t get paid for being a witness (not that juror pay amounts to anything) anyway better make sure your workplace is cool with what’s happening as you’ll probably be all day at least. I once sat an accident case that lasted a week - they settled right before deliberations. Of course it would be different for a witness but I guess you could be called back.
@aetris If this is traffic court, which is what the description sounds like, it’s not like that. There will be 50-100 cases on the docket. No jury, no stenographer unless the defendant’s attorney requested it. Just a judge, a clerk, a prosecutor and a bailiff, plus the defendant’s lawyer if they hired one (most people don’t) and the cop who wrote the ticket. Unless things are dramatically different in your jurisdiction, only the judge and the clerk are seated, everybody else just stands in front of the judge. Most tickets get about 3 minutes. Accidents with witnesses get maybe 15 minutes. Witnesses are not recalled unless the case is appealed, which is exceedingly rare.
Now it’s possible that @UncleVinny might be called later to testify in a civil claim, which is the sort of case you are describing. But not likely as it sounds like there were no serious injuries. When my car was totalled in a similar accident and the cops tried to blame me instead of the chick who ran the light and tboned me, I was lucky enough to also have two pedestrians who witnessed the accident. My insurance and her insurance interviewed them both by phone and decided that she was at fault, no court testimony needed. I was really grateful to the witnesses as they saved me thousands in deductibles, tickets and increased insurance premiums. So you are doing this person a solid by testifying, @UncleVinny.
I forgot to add that in our courts we scheduled all cases with witnesses first, so that the witnesses could testify and leave. That was a courtesy we practiced, if you are lucky it will be the case in your jurisdiction and you won’t waste a lot of time.
@moondrake I’ve got oceans of time, and I think courts are fascinating. I’ll be a little annoyed if I’m done in 10 minutes! I might hang around to see what happens.
Likewise… been a juror too many times. My husband would gripe because he wanted to sit on a jury but never got called up while it seemed I got called up about every 2 yrs. I got called up about 2 months ago but I did get out of that one.
Like moondrake said, it’ll mostly be sitting around waiting but still good to get the experience under your belt, I think.
I’m not sure Barney the Purple Dinosaur would be able to help you.
Anyway, bring something to read, but most courthouses now have Wi-Fi that you can use.
I once witnessed an accident late at night as well, drunk driver lost control and hit my neighbor’s fence. Friends in other cars with them stopped and were picking up the accident and trying to hide the drunk girl and say another person was driving.
I called the police and when they arrived I told an officer what I saw. Later on I got that summons to appear as a witness.
I had to take the day off work and go sit in court, only to be told they had made a deal and I wouldn’t be needed. Was a waste of time and in the future if I witness something I’ll always be considering whether it’s worth potentially going to court to step up or if I should just go on about my business and not get involved.
@djslack Very often it is the presence of witnesses that causes the guilty party to cave and cut a deal. That was the case in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in which I was the main witness . The City was suing to reclaim a building we constructed for a “nonprofit” that was being misused. The agency assumed it would be higher-up boss types without direct factual knowledge testifying and figured they could trip them up on facts. I was the actual on-site monitor who discovered the malfeasance and documented it. When they saw me sitting in the hallway waiting to testify they just gave up and surrendered the building. The bulldog outside attorney the City had hired for the case didn’t want me to feel disappointed after hours of witness prep and assured me that it was my presence that had concluded the case in the City’s favor.
If you have something of value to add, please go with step up. It means a lot to the innocent victims in every case to have a witness that will, in effect , defend their interest. One day it could be you or a member of your family or a friend that needs someone in their court. We all have to look out for each other.
Try to “accidentally” flash everyone in court.
@ELUNO My wardrobe is usually pretty simple, but I could engineer a malfunction. Like something out of The Wrong Trousers.
Well if my experience getting out of the red light ticket using physics (see another thread https://meh.com/forum/topics/ha-physics-works-to-get-out-of-going-through-a-red-light-ticket ) was any example (and watching what came before me and after me as I waited my turn to see some lady also located in the court room to process the she isn’t guilty afterall paperwork) the entire thing is very short. I was read a bunch of crap I had to agree to. I got to tell my side in about 3 min or less. I stood by a railing talking to the judge. For me they left the room with my paper that had on it my map, measurements, photos of how the cop couldn’t possibly see the white line, my formula and math. They came back (I didn’t see them leave the room for anyone else while I was there). They then told me I got out of the ticket. They ran through about 20 ish people before me and about 5 more while I waited for them to process some paperwork afterwards. I was there about 2.5 hours total. You can’t leave to put money in the meter. Lucky for me I got there early enough I got a free parking spot or I would have gotten a parking ticket (a money making plot I think since you can only put an hour on the near by meters). All of us had to show up at court’s start time regardless of where we were on the docket.
@Kidsandliz
There are parking meter apps that allow you to re-up the meter remotely.
You have to park initially using the app. Or else know the code on that meter.
Depends on city.
@f00l @Kidsandliz In a lot of places “feeding the meter” is illegal. I used to have a problem with 2 hour meters outside my 3 hour class at the art museum. Competition was fierce, there’s only 11 meters and about 30 students plus museum patrons, you couldn’t just come out and move to another meter. I organized students to complain as a whole. The Museum is the City’s, we pay the City for them, so it was their responsibility to provide reasonable access. The city replaced the 2hr meters with 4 hour meters. You are still not allowed to feed them, but at least you can get a decent amount of time.
@Kidsandliz @moondrake
The app will not allow “feeding the meter” for meters where that practice is restricted.
Here, the rules depends on which meter.
Yeah. I tried. Because it had been fine on certain meters.
But not on other meters, and the app knew which.
The best advice I got from a lawyer was to try and listen to the question put to me and answer with the shortest way possible - yes or no if possible. I did my best to follow those instructions while the person on the other side answered in novel format which clearly frustrated the court.
@fjp999 - Did you win?
@fjp999 yeah! Being succinct is tough for me cuz I’m a gosh darn chatterbox. So I’m gonna try to keep it short ‘n’ sweet.
@aetris Yes. I had forgot about the first time being in front of a judge for my disability/special needs trust. In both the judge decided so quickly (and for my side) that even my lawyer seemed to be a little surprised.
@UncleVinny Good luck. I do think being a witness is different. My lawyers had a Q&A practice with me and if that can be arranged with you it can be so calming.
@fjp999 @UncleVinny Is this Traffic Court, aka Munucipal Court? If this is traffic court there’s likely no lawyer for the defense. If there is they are likely one of those $100 a ticket types that are only getting paid for the court appearance. If it were a civil suit I’m sure there would have been witness prep. I even got prepped twice as a witness in an uncontested 15 minute probate hearing. But there is no way a lawyer is going to do witness prep for a traffic ticket, unless there is something else going on, like it’s a dui or the defendant is related to somebody famous and needs to win for PR purposes.
You might need protection, keep an eye out for suspicious tails.
On the plus side, maybe Han could hide you.
@kdemo oooh, maybe I could take a vow of silence, or renounce violence, or pledge $10 to NPR or somethin’
Anyway, some kind of ritualistic rite seems a propos.
@UncleVinny - A little late for a Karma play. Just respect the judge and process, and you’ll be fine.
Best of luck to you, hope it goes well. Can’t wait for your report.
Thanks for the stories, everyone! I will post a follow up next week, lord willin’