Quite embarrassing to say the least!

While at work today, my wife calls in a panic telling me that there’s a deputy at the door serving a witness subpoena. She’s a little freaked out, not fully understanding why there’s a guy at the door, in uniform, with my picture - telling my wife to accept delivery of the subpoena. I spoke with the deputy briefly, asking what I was witness to. He briefly explains the situation, and I tell him he’s clearly mistaken. He has a photo of me, asking if I’ve ever lived at an obscure address in the past year. Been in my house for 10+.
Ultimately, he leaves the docs with my wife, telling her that he doesn’t make mistakes with subpoenas. Clearly.

I spent the better part of the day calling the courts, stating my case. After digging through the reports, they see that the name mentioned in the report ends in an ‘S’, while mine ends in ‘Z’. It seems as though I’ll be removed, but it’s puzzling that the officer came to my door with my picture to serve a witness subpoena. The subpoena listed a different address than mine, and the deputy said he went to 4 or 5 other addresses looking for me. What a mess

quote:

Originally posted by lopezp:
Quite embarrassing to say the least!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



I spent the better part of the day calling the courts, stating my case. After digging through the reports, they see that the name mentioned in the report ends in an ‘S’, while mine ends in ‘Z’. It seems as though I’ll be removed, but it’s puzzling that the officer came to my door with my picture to serve a witness subpoena. The subpoena listed a different address than mine, and the deputy said he went to 4 or 5 other addresses looking for me. What a mess

When this happened to me I called a criminal defense attorney who took care of it. We first called the courthouse and generally wasted our time just like you. Made me have even less faith in the judicial system. The subpoena process is frequently used to push people around.

Well, that should give you great faith in the local DA (or whatever it is that serves as the prosecutorial function where you are).

Top.

Men.

Or women. I mean, they can fuck shit up and have a "can do" attitude about it as good as any man.

Eh , shit happens . At least it wasn't a Warrant .

Where was the picture from? Social media?

I think that state and local agencies have not yet recovered from COVID. I spent part of this afternoon clearing up a mistake by both the SC DMV and the local county auditor. Supposedly, I still owned a car I sold more than a year ago. At the time I provided a bill of sale from a local dealer to both the DMV and the local office of the County auditor. No longer on the hook for property taxes for the car I sold, and DMV records show the car has already been registered in the name of the new owner. Neither DMV nor the County auditor offered an apology nor an explanation other than point the finger at the other office or "the computer system". While waiting at the DMV I heard another individual working to clear up an issue: because the "system" did not show he had sold his vehicle, he had been notified his DL had been suspended--he was trying to clear up the situation by speaking to the dealer who bought his car. So not surprised that you experienced a problem with a witness subpoena. I am not sure that state and local employees care any longer about doing their jobs professionally.

Your jurisdiction may be different than mine, but serving a subpoena on your wife would not be effective service on you in Texas. Service means you give it to the named person, not someone else. Here in Texas you could have ignored it. Even the misspelling probably would have been fatal, even had they served it on you.

Clearly, this was an error, and sorry for your troubles. I am assuming that this was for a criminal matter, so calling the DA handling the case would have probably been the most expeditious way to sort it out, as the DA has no desire to have you show up in court and then testify, "I am not the right guy, and I have no idea about any of this. I don't know nuffin."

quote:

Originally posted by uvahawk:
I think that state and local agencies have not yet recovered from COVID. I spent part of this afternoon clearing up a mistake by both the SC DMV

Lord... the S.C. department of vehicles... My wife a number of years ago decided to give me her truck and we needed to go transfer the title that day... "yes...dear". I tried to tell her it would be a nightmare.... took all day... at the end of the day the nice lady at the highway dept. handed me the new title... I politely told her it was easier to get into the White House and work in the Oval Office than to transfer a title of a vehicle in S.C. she just kind of looked at me confused... the crazy thing is this is true.... I've done it more than once....

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
Eh , shit happens . At least it wasn't a Warrant .

Or a freakin' no-knock raid at oh-dark-thirty

I have credible concerns about that one. We've a neighbor we suspect is dealing. It's his life. His concern. But, man ...

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
Where was the picture from? Social media?

It was my DL picture

Happens pretty frequently. You just have to tell the lawyer who had you served that he has the wrong “John Smith.”

Near thirty(?) years ago now I got papers from someone from the county, informing me that I was under investigation for child abuse. (Of my step daughter.)

Seeing as how I wasn't married and had no children, step or otherwise....

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Your jurisdiction may be different than mine, but serving a subpoena on your wife would not be effective service on you in Texas. Service means you give it to the named person, not someone else. Here in Texas you could have ignored it. Even the misspelling probably would have been fatal, even had they served it on you.

Clearly, this was an error, and sorry for your troubles. I am assuming that this was for a criminal matter, so calling the DA handling the case would have probably been the most expeditious way to sort it out, as the DA has no desire to have you show up in court and then testify, "I am not the right guy, and I have no idea about any of this. I don't know nuffin."

What’s puzzling to me is the lack of effort in finding the real witness to this case. With a simple google search of the name and address on the subpoena, I found the full name, DOB, and phone number for the guy. He no longer lives at the address, but the DOB is 1969, not 1982. Not only is our last name different, our middle names are not even close to the same.

I used to serve civil papers back in the ‘90s, and at that time, I didn’t have access to DL photos back then, nor did I have time to since I was way too busy to do so.

If I was serving papers today, I can easily look up your Texas DL photo so I can positively identify you. Since these are civil, I can’t detain a person for an ID as in criminal related incidents.

Incompetency is nothing new in government, I experienced it in the early 2000’s.

We sold our old house that year in the first week of July. At the time of sale we removed a ceramic address plate from it, this was disclosed to the buyer and specifically mentioned in the sales documents. Also the same afternoon of closing I went to that city’s assessors office to remove the homeowner exemption, signed and dated the paperwork that day.

About three weeks later I get a letter from that city stating that I was in violation of a city ordinance requiring the street number on buildings. Checked the date, written and postmarked two days prior. Letter stated I had ten days to correct the violation or I would be ticketed.

Next morning I called the building department. I gave them the case number, the clerk/drone starts telling me in a monotone voice what was required.

I stopped her in mid sentence and told her that they were trying to issue me a violation for a building that I had not owned for almost a month, I had no connection to the new owner and she could walk to the assessor’s office and verify everything through them. Best part of this all the municipal offices in this city were physically under one roof but separated by one floor. Obviously a lack of communication there.

Best part, the clerk was now stunned, goes quiet. Then she asks me if I would contact the new owner and let them know that they needed the number on the house.

My reply was “Let me think about this, NO!, not my problem!” as I hung up.

I would have been tempted to just go and show up at trial.

It would have been entertaining.

quote:

Originally posted by bobtheelf:
I would have been tempted to just go and show up at trial.

It would have been entertaining.

My thoughts exactly. I've got plenty of time and I think if would be fun embarrassing a lawyer.

quote:

Originally posted by dgshooter:

quote:

Originally posted by bobtheelf:
I would have been tempted to just go and show up at trial.

It would have been entertaining.

My thoughts exactly. I've got plenty of time and I think if would be fun embarrassing a lawyer.

After showing up, would there be any way to invoice (and collect from) the lawyer who negligently issued the incorrect subpoena? Time -- portal to portal, at the same hourly rate that the lawyer bills for his / her time, and mileage at the current IRS rate of 65.5¢ / mile, seems like fair compensation.

As the manager of an SSA Office I got dozens of subpoenas over the years. Didn't respond to 95% of them. I simply forwarded them to some attorneys who worked for SSA (or the US Attorney's Office depending on the issue). They would respond to the subpoena explaining why we wouldn't respond and the legal justification.

Of course people are entitled to their OWN records. Once in a while we would get a subpoena from someone requesting information from their own file. (Example. They want medical records from their disability file for a law suit.) So we would say. OK fine. We'll process this as a subpoena response and give you what you want. Of course we have a procedure for meeting the requirements for responding to a subpoena. May take a few weeks. Or you can withdraw the subpoena and come in with some ID. We'll just give you the records right away. No wait. They are your records and you are entitled to them anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by lopezp:
What’s puzzling to me is the lack of effort in finding the real witness to this case. With a simple google search of the name and address on the subpoena, I found the full name, DOB, and phone number for the guy. He no longer lives at the address, but the DOB is 1969, not 1982. Not only is our last name different, our middle names are not even close to the same.

Wow! Lazy "research" prior to looking for the person and even lazier "service" (i.e. handing to the wrong person's spouse).

Perhaps the judge who signed needs to hear about this. I was involved in a civil suit, and I fired my first attorney for a myriad of reasons which in hindsight turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. The respondents complained to the judge that both the serving process and notary process violated state law, and the judge was so pissed he ordered my former attorney to appear and read her the riot act in front of my new attorney and the respondent's attorney.