My question involves criminal law for the state of: KS
I am not currently involved in any court matters and this is purely for education purposes.
I have in the past been involved with a city ordinance matter that involved the city charging and citing a specific code that had zero relevance to the case and upon testimony, it was proved that the defendant was not guilty of the complaint as cited. Near the end of the trial, the prosecutor finally realized the issues and motioned to amend the complaint, in which I objected and was overruled and was not given an opportunity to cross examine the witness again, as it totally changed the direction of the trial.
I recently stumbled into a similar situation on youtube in which the judge was fair and denied the state's motion to amend the complaint and told them to refile, and found for the defendant.
It makes me wonder about specific statutory powers that allow the state to make such gross clerical errors, yet be allowed latitude to amend on the fly. In my case, I defended diligently against the CHARGE that was on record. It seemed it should be illegal to amend such charges after testimony or at least the trial should be granted a recess if not a completely new trial!
Can anyone comment how this process is supposed to work and why the state is granted special powers such as this? Looking at this in reverse, I certainly would not be granted such latitude for clerical errors.
In another case, a city made an error on a traffic citation and noted a court date on the citation on the wrong day. A day that court was not even in session. It was never even caught until trial, and the prosecutor quickly wanted to get my citation and "have another issued by the LEO" even though it is defined by statute that the state shall provide the correct court date on the citation. In that matter, the LEO declined the reissue the citation indicating officers need to be diligent in getting court dates correct on the citations, leaving the dumb founded prosecutor no choice but to dismiss it.
However, had the officer reissued a citation, the small city court most certainly would have convicted the charge even though there were gross clerical errors. Had I made an error in showing up on the wrong day, I most certainly would not be given latitude "for my error". Now, I had already intended to appeal the matter in higher court, pretty much banking on them sweeping this under the rug, but it seems a huge waste of tax dollars just to prove a point. I would wager a district judge would not look at this quite the same as a small town judge.
I am not currently involved in any court matters and this is purely for education purposes.
I have in the past been involved with a city ordinance matter that involved the city charging and citing a specific code that had zero relevance to the case and upon testimony, it was proved that the defendant was not guilty of the complaint as cited. Near the end of the trial, the prosecutor finally realized the issues and motioned to amend the complaint, in which I objected and was overruled and was not given an opportunity to cross examine the witness again, as it totally changed the direction of the trial.
I recently stumbled into a similar situation on youtube in which the judge was fair and denied the state's motion to amend the complaint and told them to refile, and found for the defendant.
It makes me wonder about specific statutory powers that allow the state to make such gross clerical errors, yet be allowed latitude to amend on the fly. In my case, I defended diligently against the CHARGE that was on record. It seemed it should be illegal to amend such charges after testimony or at least the trial should be granted a recess if not a completely new trial!
Can anyone comment how this process is supposed to work and why the state is granted special powers such as this? Looking at this in reverse, I certainly would not be granted such latitude for clerical errors.
In another case, a city made an error on a traffic citation and noted a court date on the citation on the wrong day. A day that court was not even in session. It was never even caught until trial, and the prosecutor quickly wanted to get my citation and "have another issued by the LEO" even though it is defined by statute that the state shall provide the correct court date on the citation. In that matter, the LEO declined the reissue the citation indicating officers need to be diligent in getting court dates correct on the citations, leaving the dumb founded prosecutor no choice but to dismiss it.
However, had the officer reissued a citation, the small city court most certainly would have convicted the charge even though there were gross clerical errors. Had I made an error in showing up on the wrong day, I most certainly would not be given latitude "for my error". Now, I had already intended to appeal the matter in higher court, pretty much banking on them sweeping this under the rug, but it seems a huge waste of tax dollars just to prove a point. I would wager a district judge would not look at this quite the same as a small town judge.
Trials: Rights of the State to Amend Complaints During a Trial
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