A dodging cop

Sitting through several ALR hearings yesterday, I heard the same thing several times. For a defense attorney to be able to question a police officer about the grounds for a traffic stop or the procedures he followed in deciding a person is Driving While Intoxicated, we have to subpoena them. That's right, even though the State has the burden of proof, defense attorney's have to subpoena the officer to appear so that his testimony can be taken.

So you would think that wouldn't be so hard because the State procedures require us to do it. Except that police officers have become very good at dodging service. Now understand, they accept any request to appear from a prosecutor. Heck, they don't even need to be subpoenaed. But when a defense attorney tries to subpoena them, they suddenly are"on family leave, vacation, training," or any other number of excuses. It's actually shocking how many officers do this that I am beginning to wonder if they have not been advised to do this by a supervisor or someone in the District Attorney's Office.

It is so blatant that a police agency told my process server that they "do not accept" service from defense attorneys. A defense attorney has to personally serve the officer. But they have no problem if a subpoena or request is faxed over by the DA's office.

Really!

So, how do you serve a dodging cop. Just do what we do, find their residence, follow them as they run their errands, drop off their kids at school or take their girlfriends out to lunch . . . and then serve them at the most inconvenient time. Sooner or later they will get tired of being harassed on their personal time, and police agencies will agree to "accept service."

I put that in quotes, because you don't have a choice to accept service or not. When you are served, you are served.

So take my advice. Next time, you need the presence of a police officer at an ALR hearing, spend the money to hire a good process server that does not mind serving a cop when off duty.

And have some fun with it. I know I will!

And to those of you that are officers that play this little game with defense attorneys - don't get upset when you are served on your off time at the most inconvenient time possible for you, just realize that you brought it on yourself.

You can run . . . you can hide, but we'll get you! And I can guarantee, you won't like the way we do it.