DES MOINES – Accusers must face an accused drunk driver in person, not via teleconference, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled this week.
An Iowa man, Zach Rogerson, appealed a district court’s pretrial order allowing several state’s witnesses to testify by two-way videoconference in his drunk driving trial. He allegedly drove drunk and caused serious injuries to himself and 3 others. The case required the court to decide when the Sixth Amendment permits a witness to appear by live, two-way video instead of testifying in person.
Applying Sixth Amendment precedent, the court ruled that two-way videoconference testimony should not be substituted for in-person confrontation absent a showing of necessity to further an important public interest. Because the grounds advanced by the State did not reach that level, the court held that the district court erred in allowing the videoconference testimony.
Rogerson was the driver of a vehicle that crashed in 2012 near Dubuque. Dubuque County sheriff’s deputies responding to the scene encountered four other people at the crash site, all of whom were injured. Rogerson was charged with four counts of unintentionally causing serious injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and pleaded not guilty. Before trial, the state filed a motion requesting that several of its witnesses be permitted to testify remotely via two-way videoconferencing technology rather than physically appearing in court. In its motion, the state asserted that three of the parties injured in the crash resided outside the state of Iowa and that remote video “testimony would greatly expedite and facilitate their participation in the Trial.”
That ruling is now overturned.
