Witness not present

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? South Carolina

On the day of my hearing and after 2 cases were heard, the judge left his
chambers for about 2 minutes. When he returned he said that the witness (officer) for my case is in the hospital and will not be present . He scheduled a continuance. I moved to dismiss because the witness wasn't present. He denied it.

Do I have a choice in this matter?

mcdo said:

Do I have a choice in this matter?

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Yep. You can chose to plead guilty, plead nolo or show up on the new trial date.

mcdo said:

On the day of my hearing and after 2 cases were heard, the judge left his chambers for about 2 minutes. When he returned he said that the witness (officer) for my case is in the hospital and will not be present . He scheduled a continuance.

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Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. You'd want to be able to reschedule if you were in the hospital, wouldn't you?

Do I have a choice in this matter?

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About whether the case is to be continued to a different date?

No.

Speedy Trial

Unfortunately, most states will automatically grant one continuance to each side of the case (additional continuances are at the discretion of the judge and the nature of the circumstance).

However, in the United States there is a right to a "speedy trial." Unfortunately, not many states will list how many days constitute "speedy." You should check with your state to see if they have any such time limit. If they reschedule the date past that number of days (from the date of the ticket), you should show up to your court date and as soon as the judge asks the prosecutor (or officer) if he has an opening statement, you should motion that the ticket be dismissed because the state failed to give you a speedy trial.

However, if you intentionally try to push the date back (after the time limit), you are forfeiting your right to a speedy trial (so they could wait however long they want), or if they set a date and you agree to it, your right to a speedy trial will again be forfeit. This really works ONLY in the circumstance that the judge grants the continuance to the officer and the courts says "your new trial date is XXXX." If that date is after the time limit you may have something.

You'll probably want to speak to an attorney about this, but if you have not yet used your continuance, you could use yours for the next court date in an attempt to force them to reschedule after that number of days. However, if you don't give them at least a week after your continuance to set a new date within the time limit, it will probably be constrewed as forfeiting your right.

If your state DOES NOT have a specific number of days that constitute a "speedy trial," you can use a reasonable number of days. In states that have a time amount, it is usually 45, 60 or occassionally 90 days. If your court date is after any of those times, you could still ask the judge to throw out the ticket because you were not given a speedy trial, but unless the state declares a number of days, you have no chance in this working (barring that the judge is a close family member).

Best of luck!