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Committee hears bill to allow notice to appear for unavailable or material witnesses
Summary
Senate Bill 203 would authorize courts to issue a notice to appear for a witness personally served with a subpoena who fails to appear and to treat that failure as a basis for declaring the witness unavailable under rules of evidence; public defenders opposed the bill citing due-process and confrontation concerns.
Senate Bill 203, which would authorize a court to issue a notice to appear for a witness who was personally served with a subpoena but does not appear and to treat the failure as a statutory basis for considering the witness "unavailable," received testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee but was not worked to a vote.
Joshua Stewart, senior assistant district attorney in Sedgwick County, testified for the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association that the bill provides a less coercive alternative to arrest for witnesses who repeatedly fail to appear. "Senate bill 203 gives a prosecutor a gentler option that does not expose a victim to the embarrassment, the hardship, and collateral consequence of immediate arrest and incarceration," Stewart said, describing the measure as helping survivors who are pressured to avoid court.
Opponents from the state public defender-related committee raised due-process and confrontation concerns. Lindsay (transcript: "Wendy") Ford, testifying for the public-defense legislative committee, said the indirect-contempt mechanism could lead to detention without appointed counsel and could expand the definition of "unavailable" in ways that affect confrontation and hearsay rules.
The reviser's brief said the bill would add authorization in KSA 22-2805 for a court to issue a notice to appear for indirect contempt and would add to the definitions of unavailability in the hearsay statute to include failure to appear under the new provision. No committee vote on SB 203 is recorded in the hearing portion of the transcript.
