Q: If my co-defendant is on the run and not showing for court, will the case move forward, or will it be stalled?
A:
It depends. Your case may be delayed, but not forever. And it’s possible it won’t be delayed at all.
As a strategic matter, the state, or your lawyer, may have reasons to delay resolving your case until the co-defendant is apprehended. Capturing co-defendant and using co-D’s testimony may help the state, but your lawyer may want to delay resolving your case if co-D is more criminally culpable and would provide testimony as such, for example if it was actually co-D who took a car or possessed drugs and not you.
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