If you are in a Bucks County jury trial and the case has proceeded but an important Commonwealth witness is missing, what can you do? If you believe that missing witness would have been helpful to your defense, your Bucks County criminal defense lawyer should be in a position to argue for a jury instruction regarding the missing witness. In Commonwealth v. Manigault, 501 Pa. 506, 462 A.2d 239 (1983), the court outlined the requirements necessary for such an instruction:
A missing witness instruction may be warranted where a witness is: (1) available to only one of the parties to a trial, and (2), and it appears this witness has special information material to the issue, and (3), the witnesses testimony would not be merely cumulative, then if that party does not present the testimony of the witness, the jury may draw an inference that such testimony, had it been presented, would have been unfavorable to that party.
If all of those requirements are met, then it is important for the jury to infer that that person's presence and testimony would have been unfavorable to the Commonwealth.