More Subpoenas Filed

The Luzerne County District Attorneys Office has filed 13 witness subpoenas for the upcoming trial involving Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes. I'm currently working on trying to get additional information, as it was just done late today. I'll update this post as soon as I can (which probably won't be until tomorrow).

Update 12/02/08: According to the Times Leader, the subpoenas were issued to organizations including MySpace.com, Verizon Wireless, America Online, Alltel and Sprint Nextel.

The subpoenas order presentation of any printed records, CDs, phone records, e-mails and other documents to trial. More shortly...

Witness Subpoena

As previously mentioned back on June 11, 2008 - the District Attorney's office filed 33 Subpoenas & Certifications for out-of-state witnesses. Interestingly, some of these were actually written as early as May 19, 2008, though most were done on June 6, 2008. Below is a copy of one of the subpoena's along with the certification (edited to remove witness's address), all of the subpoenas are pretty-much worded the same, with the only difference being the material witness name:

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is scheduled to commence criminal prosecution of Joseph Kerekes and Harlow Cuadra at trial commencing on September 2, 2008 in the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, 200 N. River Street, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 18711. [Witness Name] is a material witnesses for the Commonwealth and the attendance at the aforesaid trial is necessary from September 2 through September 26, 2008. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requests that in the event that the witness is uncooperative, that the witness be taken into immediate custody and delivered to an officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to ensure his/her inclusive attendance at the Pennsylvania trial proceedings as per Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 522 and all relevant comments thereto and pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S.A. section 5964 relating to witnesses from another state summoned to testify in this Commonwealth. The Commonwealth certifies the compulory attendance of this witness is not for the purpose of serving said witness with process from another civil or criminal proceeding. The Commonwealth hereby waives its right to serve said witness with process, civil or criminal, by virtue of the witness' attendance/presence in Pennsylvania in this matter.

Out Of State, Not Out of Reach

A question has been spit out of the Comments section like a watermelon seed: can the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania force out-of-state witnesses (like Sean and Grant) to come testify in lovely Luzerne county for Harlow Cuadra & Joe Kerekes' murder trial?



For criminal cases, all state governments have agreements that may make subpoenas for appearances binding on residents. In California , the Pennsylvania court must certify to the local courts that a person in California is a material witness in a criminal case. The California court then holds a hearing to determine if the subpoenaed person is a material witness and that the witness will not suffer an undue hardship by appearing in the out-of-state court.

Undue Hardship in California basically means the person must be very ill or in the hospital, 65 years of age or older, a dependent adult, or his life is in jeopardy. If the witness meets any of these criteria, he may apply for an order that the witness be examined conditionally, meaning in California . Prosecutors from Pennsylvania can ask for that, too.

It's unlikely California would reject PA's request, since judges do realize that, while today Pennsylvania might be the ones who've come a-calling for a recalcitrant Californian witness, on another day California will certainly go a-courting in PA, looking for one of their timorous witnesses. It's rather like extradition: if one state denies another today, tomorrow they might well find themselves denied-- oftentimes out of spite. Funny how the grand, legal patriarchs of the several states are a lot like kindergartners isn't it?

-Both PC and KM contributed to this story.