Oops…Nevermind.
This is why everyone includes disclaimers when they post legal information. I didn’t know you were giving expert testimony. If you were required to render any professional opinions about the case, you could have relied on this provision:
In some jurisdictions, an expert can refuse to offer any opinions, even if subpoenaed, without compensation. They can be required to testify to factual matters that they witnessed. So it would probably depend on whether the prosecutor needed opinions.
Right, and on reading the first rule I cited to its end, I see that PA permits trial in absentia if the defendant was absent without cause. What makes this more difficult is that the defendant was apparently convicted of a different and more serious charge than the one he thought was being tried. He didn’t get any notice at all of the upcharge.
Right. So he didn’t show because he thought the maximum penalty was a fine. And then the judge pulled a switcheroo and he goes to jail. That’s a due process problem.
Well, I will update this thread with news of the appeal if (when) it happens.
If vetbridge (my hero!) called someone a scuzzball over an animal abuse case, I’m glad the judge slapped some jail time on him. It might make some of the other scuzzballs think a bit before they abuse a helpless animal. The morbidly curious side of me wants details, but the animal-lover side (which usually controls) is glad none were posted. Working as a vet tech, I’ve seen enough to haunt my dreams.
Please keep us updated!
I recently had to appear as a witness in a case, and found (to my surprise) that my employer treated it the same as jury duty. Maybe because the employer was a county govenment. So I reported it as such, and was paid for the time. Had I been paid anything by the court, I would have had to turn that check over, but I wasn’t.
So I’d check to see if your employer will actually give you paid time off for this. Apparently many do so.
Howdy t-bonham, welcome to another edition of, Sucks to be Self-Employed. 
Howdy Snakescatlady!
In effect, you would wind up paying his fine for him. What’s the sense in that?
I’m not a litigator, and it’s not obvious to me that vetbridge was giving expert testimony in this situation. Does he have to qualify as an expert to describe what he witnessed? Do they need an expert to say that the treatment qualified as abuse?
I agree it’s less than clear. His comment about not having training in forensics suggests that something more than his perceptions are required here. Once we get to that point, it gets dicey. We don’t have enough facts.
If what he witnessed were medical observations, or he is required him to provide opinions in order to assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence, then he’s probably giving expert testimony.
http://members.aol.com/StatutesP3/Ev.7.html
In a civil case, his records would be admissible, and to the extent that satisfactory information was found in them, it’s a different story.
http://members.aol.com/StatutesP8/Ev.803.html
But the notes to the business record exception to the hearsay rule cite the case of Commonwealth v. Mc Cloud, 457 Pa. 310, 322 A.2d 653 (1974) for the proposition that using business records in a criminal case may violate the defendant’s confrontation rights.
If his testimony is undercut because he lacks training in forensics, then that suggests he is giving an expert opinion. Laypeople don’t have forensic training either.* And see*, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=ut&vol=appopin&invol=kent (one cannot become an expert in another specialty merely by “a review of the documents in the particular case.”)