Her not showing up is an issue for the prosecution, which had issued the subpoena.
Lori Burns, a victims advocate with the county attorney s office, wouldn t discuss individual cases, but discussed what the county attorney s office does require of abuse victims. That is the way we prove our charges, is through the oral testimony, Burns said. We have to subpoena people the prosecutor deems as necessary so that we can go forward with our charges.
It runs much deeper than that, however.
There is a constitutional issue namely the Sixth Amendment, which allows the accused to face their accuser. The rights of the accused are greatly protected by both the US and state constitutions and those protections greatly reduce, and actually almost always eliminate, the options for victims who do not want to appear in court, said Brandon L. Jones, president of the Kansas County and District Attorney s Association.