how does a unrepresented citizen go about subpoenaing a witness?

[nerd]

I am wondering how a person goes about subpoenaing a witness when that person cannot afford an attorney? I know that a citizen should be able to follow the same steps that an attorney would follow. I also understand that it would be better to have an attorney, but there is no way to afford it. So the only choice is to have the witnesses subpoenaed ourselves. The witnesses are police officers. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Indigo Mom]

#1, call the police officer and ask if he'll be willing to testify.  Chances are, he'll say he must have a subpoena, but there's a chance he won't need one.  Officers are VERY busy, they don't just sit around and eat donuts...so a subpoena "might" be the only way to take him off his duty for a few hours.  The officer in my criminal case didn't need a subpoena, we just had to carry the trial over to day 2 because on day 1 he was swamped with work.

#2, I went to the articles section on SPARC, typed in "how to subpoena a witness" and an article came up.  However, each time, my computer froze and I wasn't able to post the link here for ya...but it did show step by step instructions for getting a subpoena for a person and documents.

Also, if you go to your local PD, you can purchase the police report yourself.  Make sure you get that FIRST, just in case the subpoena thing doesn't work.