Short answer. Yes. A person present in court before a judicial officer may be required to testify just as if he or she had been served a subpoena; physical presence before the court substitutes for the formal subpoena process that would otherwise be needed to compel that same testimony.

What the law says

A person present in court before a judicial officer may be required to testify as if he or she were in attendance upon a subpoena issued by such court or officer.

Rule 21, Section 7 — Personal appearance in court. Read the full provision →

Presence in court can substitute for a subpoena

This provision addresses the specific situation of a person who is simply present in court before a judicial officer, without having previously been formally served any subpoena at all for that particular matter. The rule nonetheless allows such a person to be required to testify as if he or she were already in attendance upon a subpoena that had been issued by that same court or officer beforehand.

Why formal service becomes unnecessary here

The entire underlying purpose of a subpoena, after all, is simply to compel a given person's attendance so that they can then actually testify before the court. Where that person is already physically present before the judicial officer for whatever reason, the underlying purpose of formal service has effectively already been accomplished on its own — there is no genuine practical need remaining for the formal document to compel an attendance that has already, in fact, happened.

The scope of who this applies to

The rule is not narrowly limited only to a witness who happened to wander into the courtroom for some entirely unrelated purpose disconnected from any case whatsoever; it instead applies fairly broadly to any person present in court before a judicial officer, allowing that officer to require testimony from someone in that general position regardless of the specific reason they actually happened to be there that day.

Practical implication for anyone in the courtroom

Being physically present in a courtroom before a judge is not, under this rule, treated as some kind of shield against being asked to testify simply because no formal subpoena happens to have been issued beforehand for that occasion — that mere physical presence can itself be treated as equivalent to having already been formally subpoenaed for purposes of compelling that particular testimony from the person present. Anyone attending a hearing for one matter should therefore be aware they could be called to testify on an entirely different matter pending before that same judicial officer that same day.

What this does not excuse

This shortcut only dispenses with the paperwork of formal service; it does not excuse a witness from the ordinary duty to testify truthfully, nor does it strip away whatever privileges or valid objections that witness could otherwise raise had they been subpoenaed the conventional way. It simply means the judicial officer need not pause proceedings to have a subpoena formally issued and served before requiring testimony from someone who is, in every practical sense, already there and available.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.