"A defendant confined in jail in county one, cannot willfully
fail to appear, as ordered, in county two. Such a defendant does
not “fail” to appear. He cannot appear. He should not suffer a
penalty for not appearing."
That's not really accurate, I think. For example, if county one was about to transport the defendant to county two for sentencing, and the defendant successfully resisted and refused to come out of his cell, I would think that's more than sufficient to establish a willful failure to appear. And it happens.
Perhaps a better summary of this very short opinion would be: "If a court orders someone to not commit any crimes in the interim and to appear for sentencing, it's not enough for the prosecutor to try to introduce uncertified court records to establish that he committed a crime in the interim and was incarcerated as a result. You've got to have admissible evidence."
That seems fairly self-evidently true.
