Wisconsin Statutes 885.12 – Coercing witnesses before officers and boards
Terms Used In Wisconsin Statutes 885.12
- Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
- Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
- Person: includes all partnerships, associations and bodies politic or corporate. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
- Sworn: includes "affirmed" in all cases where by law an affirmation may be substituted for an oath. See Wisconsin Statutes 990.01
- Testify: Answer questions in court.
- Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
If any person, without reasonable excuse, fails to attend as a witness, or to testify as lawfully required before any arbitrator, coroner, medical examiner, board, commission, commissioner, examiner, committee, or other officer or person authorized to take testimony, or to produce a book or paper which the person was lawfully directed to bring, or to subscribe the person’s deposition when correctly reduced to writing, any judge of a court of record or a circuit court commissioner in the county where the person was obliged to attend may, upon sworn proof of the facts, issue an attachment for the person, and unless the person shall purge the contempt and go and testify or do such other act as required by law, may commit the person to close confinement in the county jail until the person shall so testify or do such act, or be discharged according to law. The sheriff of the county shall execute the commitment.