I’m asking because of the reports Sarah and Todd Palin have both decided to “refuse to cooperate” with the investigation of her and the subpoenas issued for both of them.
Is this legal? I never thought of subpoenas as “if it’s convenient and you’ve nothing else planned” things but thought they carried the weight of the court with them.
While it’s related to the Palins, it’s not political so much as a general question: under what circumstances are you allowed not to cooperate with a legal investigation or not comply with subpoenas?
Another question- hypothetical: Suppose I moved from Alabama to California. Suppose I were then sued in Alabama (or sued in California upon return to Alabama, or whatever) and subpoenad, am I required to pay my own expenses to the trial? If I am unable to pay my own expenses, can I plead poverty with the court? Or appeal to the court for some form of leniency?
For that matter, suppose I’m in Chicago and I witness a crime. The trial is not until 7 months later and I am ordered to give testimony. Same question: would I have to pay my own expenses?
(Not that I think either state would send deputies across a country to pick me up if it weren’t a capital crime.)
The subpoenas were not issued by a court, they are legislative subpoenas. In order to bring contempt charges, the legislature must be in session. The Alaskan legislature does not reconvene until January, well after the election. Todd Palin can suddenly have a change of heart and testify after the election to avoid prosecution. It is just a stalling tactic.
Since you asked in general, as well as about Palin…
You can ignore an attorney’s subpoena. However, if he/she really wants your records/testimony/hat size, he can petition (file a motion with) the Court, which will issue an order compelling your attendance/testimony/hat measurement if it finds that the subpoena serves a legitimate purpose, ie. is relevant to the case and not privileged.
If you ignore that (the order), you’ll be found in contempt, and fined/imprisoned/tarred and feathered.
In a federal setting, spousal [testimonial] privilege applies to criminal proceedings only. Alaska may have a state-level spousal privilege with wider protections but I doubt it.
First off, there are difference between judicial subpoenas and legislative subpoenas. If a witness is validly served with a judicial subpoena in a court proceeding and ignore it, a party can go into court and get the court to hold the non-complaint witness in contempt, and if the witness remains non-compliant, fine or imprison the witness.
Legislative subpoenas are a little more complicated. I know nothing about contempt of an investigation of the Alaska legislature, but there has been a great deal of discussion about potential contempt of Congress by current and former Bush administration officials. The issues in finding someone in contempt of Congress are discussed in its Wikipedia entry.
There are really two questions there. The first is whether you can get sued in another state’s court, legally phrased as whether the court has “long arm personal jurisdiction” over you. This is a really complex area of the law which torments first year law students in their civil procedure course and practicing lawyers in trying to bring cases in a convenient and appropriate forum. Grotesquely oversimplifying, you can be sued in an out-of-state court if something about the transaction or occurrence being sued over is sufficiently connected to the state to make it fair to bring you in to court there. If you had a car accident in Alabama, for instance, you could almost certainly be sued there even though you lived out of state. At the other extreme, if somebody sold you something in Alabama and then moved to California, they would probably have to sue in Alabama. In between, it can get ugly. If you are sued and a court finds that it has personal jurisdiction over you, you will be required to pay the expenses of trial, and traveling to court hearings and depositions, unless the court rules or an order from the judge allows something like video conferencing.
The second question is whether you can be subpoenaed to appear in an out of state court when you are not a party to the litigation. The answer to that is generally no. A state court’s subpoena power extends only through the state. The court can, however, issue a commission asking an out of state court to order you to appear for a deposition, but that would usually take place in your state.
As before, a particular state’s court can only order someone within its state (or someone already properly before the court as a party) to appear before it. Thus, you most likely couldn’t be required to testify in Chicago unless you were an Illinois resident or you were served with the subpoena within Illinois.
That is incorrect, at least in New York. In New York, attorneys may issue judicial subpoenas, which may be enforced by contempt without a specific order enforcing them.
I think the point he’s making is that if you issue a subpoena for testimony, documents, or both, and the target ignores the subpoena, the litigant then must move to compel compliance. (This is true under California law, and I suspect under New York law. At least under California law, you do not need an order to require compliance with a subpoena, but if someone refuses to comply, you necessarily must get an order at that point.) What happens then depends on whether the scofflaw is a party to the litigation or not, whether documents were sought, and whether good cause exists to require production of those documents.
As a practical matter, however, a response to a motion to compel that basically simply says, “I didn’t feel like complying,” will result not only in an order compelling compliance, but also in an award of sanctions against such a person.
In short, as with anything, you can ignore a subpoena (but at your peril). There are consequences.
I don’t know anything about legislative subpoenas (other than my unholy fascination with the White House email debacle), so cannot speak to the legal consequences to Todd Palin for refusing to comply with the subpoena.
Nitpick: You are totally correct that the Adverse Spousal Testimonial Privilege applies only in criminal cases. But even in civil cases, the spouse maintains the Confidential Communications Privilege.
The privilege can be invoked only for communications made in private with the spouse as the only other party present. And the spouse can still be compelled to testify to other behavior that was not intended as communication. (“She came in late that night.” “She was covered with blood!”)
Or does spousal privilege not apply to legislative hearings?