Can Geno decline to testify in a criminal trial? After he made statements to the police?
Genuinely asking
Yes, they can try to subpoena him but the state has no power over him since he resides in another state.
If Geno does not want to show up, there is nothing they can do about it other than wave a stick at him.
Unfortunately for Aaron it's not that simple. Let's assume for the moment that, based on Geno
flat-out declaring last week that he's "never going out there" to take the stand "wherever the fuck it is" and based on
how chummy Keanu and Aaron have been lately, they would throw any subpoena on the ground and forever tell the Stearns County Attorney to pound sand, rather than simply snake Aaron the second April pokes her head out again and urges them to like they've done before. Leaving aside more lax civil rules that would come into play whenever Nick eventually decides to take Aaron to the cleaners like what is about to happen to Destiny, in criminal cases the Biscontes' refusal would invoke an almost century-old system of interstate compacts that most definitely can drag them across state lines should the need arise.
At first blush it appeared optimistic that the pertinent compact is missing one of two critical states in this instance:
Unif. Act to Secure the Attendance of Witnesses From Without a State in Crim. Proc. § 3 (Unif. L. Comm’n 1936)
However, on a closer look it really boils down to the content of each state's essentially similar provisions being enough to allow each other reciprocity. For starters there is New Jersey's enactment of the pertinent uniform act, which lays out the straightforward process for another state to certify the need for compulsory process and obtain a New Jersey court's order for its residents to appear:
N.J. Stat. § 2A:81-19
Obviously the underlined portion would ensure reciprocity for any state that enacted the uniform act, but its wording is intentionally broad in its inclusion of other states with essentially similar provisions, which would include the Minnesota statute that was not listed among the 1936 uniform act's enactments only because it was passed earlier in 1935 with obvious inspiration from the movement leading up to drafting of the uniform act:
Minn. Stat. § 634.06
With reciprocity thereby guaranteed, the Stearns County prosecutor would only need to move for the Stearns County judge to rubber-stamp the appropriate certification to New Jersey, and then at best have the local DA's office in New Jersey conduct the local filing and hearing for them (which can often happen as a professional courtesy) or otherwise pay for locally licensed counsel to do so, all the while postponing Aaron's trial as necessary until the material witness' compliance can be secured:
Minn. Stat. § 634.07
This sort of thing happens all the time and would be nothing new to prosecutors with as much annual volume as the over 10,000 criminal cases annually filed in Stearns County, whose drug interdiction caseload comes almost entirely from Chicago gangs after all. The question is not whether the Biscontes
can be forced to testify, but simply whether the prosecutors will bother to devote enough time and expense to obtaining that virtual certainty in the first place. With the sense of overcommitment that comes with the press attention surrounding the start of this case and with Janelle Kendall's public profile holding herself out as such a feminist hero that would make a case like this seem right up her alley, I wouldn't be quite so cavalier as Aaron in betting everything that they just won't bother to do their job, but we'll see if the bold strategy pays off for him.