How Does Deportation Affect a Criminal Trial?
The defendant in a criminal trial has a right to confront and cross examine the witnesses against him. This is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. So what happens if one of those witnesses is deported before the trial? This happened in a California case where the sheriff released a witness who had been subpoenaed to ICE. The sheriff knew it was likely the witness would be deported prior to the trial, which is exactly what happened. In order for the defense to show that they were denied the right to confront and cross examine the witness, they had to show prosecutorial misconduct. The question the California Supreme Court asked in order to decide this concerned whether the sheriff was part of the prosecutorial team. They determined that the sheriff did not act for the prosecution and was not part of the prosecution. Therefore his actions could not amount to prosecutorial misconduct. The Supreme Court also decided that the interest of the Federal government was of the highest importance s
