Q: Can witnesses for the prosecutor sit with them and whisper things during another witness for the prosecutions testimony?
First witness, the drug task force officer stayed in the court room while the K-9 to unit officer gave testimony. During the 2nd witnesses cross examination the first witness got up from his seat and went and sat with the prosecution whispering to her which caused her to re-cross examine the 2nd witness. Is that allowed?
A:
Unfortunately, you have not provided enough information. It’s not clear whether you’re talking about testimony presented at the jury trial stage or a preliminary hearing or some other motion or evidentiary hearing.
As a general rule, any competent criminal defense attorney, at a preliminary hearing stage, would invoke the “rule of sequestration.” That’s a rule which excludes all witnesses for the government from the courtroom at the beginning of the hearing so that they cannot listen to other witness testimony and be tempted to deceitfully conform their own testimony to be consistent to previous witness testimony.
Again, I simply don’t have enough information to competently answer your question. My advice would be to contact your attorney and post these questions to him or her.
Best of luck!
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