How often are police officers rebuttal witnesses instead of
direct witnesses?
Answer by Attorney Jay K. Nixon, with offices in both
Kenosha & Janesville, WI
Police officers will testify for whomever subpoena's them to
testify. Usually, that is the DA, but they are theoretically supposed to be
neutral public servants who record evidence regardless of whether it favors the
prosecution or the defense. The latter category is known as "exculpatory evidence,"
and the government has a duty to disclose it to the defense under both the
United States Constitution and the Wisconsin Constitution, under the famous
decision of Brady vs. Maryland, many decades ago. Under that rule, the
defendant is supposed to get all reports favoring the prosecution, but also all
of them favoring the defense, as well as the right to testimony by the
officer(s) who discovered that evidence, if necessary. Since officer's primary
duty is to prosecute criminals, however, the vast majority of their reports
(and therefore their testimony), favors the government, so they are usually
witnesses in the Prosecution's "case in chief," and less frequently
in the defense case. Both the prosecution and defense use both direct testimony
witnesses and rebuttal witnesses, when either side wants to refute something
entered into evidence by the other side.
See question
How can I go about this?
I currently have 16 points on my license (tickets Aug.2019,
sept 2019, feb 2020) it got suspended for 6 months and I was supposed to get it
reinstated in January of 2021, however the other day I got pulled over and got
two more tickets, now 23 poi...
Jay’s Answer
Monday at 5:31pm
You were apparently representing yourself when you
accumulated thise 23 points on your record, so you might want to pause a moment
now to ask yourself " exactly how good of a pro se attorney am I?"
Since your track record in court seems not much better than your driving
record, it might be time to try something completely different, both in your
driving and on your legal representation, and retain an attorney if you ever
want to drive legally again. Meanwhile, you should also make friends with Uber,
Waze, Lift and any other ride sharing apps you can find until you get your
license back, since at this point, you will probably start exposing yourself to
jail if keep on driving. You must also be getting close to Wisconsin's five
year revocation due to being a habitual traffic offender by now, so the time
for complacency has truly now passed for you. Wake up!
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