Judge Joan Alexander issued an order the other day in a New Britain criminal case prohibiting the state’s attorney’s office from using writs of habeas corpus to transport prisoners anywhere other than to courthouses for trial testimony or matters dealing with their own cases. It seems to be the latest development in a game of cat and mouse concerning ad hoc “workarounds” concerning law enforcement’s lack of investigatory subpoena powers.
In 2014, Judge Jon Alander, also sitting in New Britain, in State v. Ruff, addressed a practice where New Britain state’s attorneys were issuing trial subpoenas with instructions that the subpoenaed individuals contact state’s attorney’s offices to make arrangements to be interviewed and prepared for their trial testimony in advance of the actual day they were to testify. The judge found that the practice unfairly gave the subpoenaed individuals the impression that they had a legal duty to cooperate with the state in the preparation of their trial testimony, prohibited the practice and quashed the subpoena in question.
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