Witness Protection Programs Lack Funding
The witness-protection program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was shut down over four years ago. The family of 24-year-old Maurice Pulley believes that he would still be alive today if the program had not been cut.
Last year, Pulley had agreed to testify against the man who had shot him in the face during an argument over a parking spot. However, before the criminal trial ever took place, he was killed in his mother's driveway by two gunmen. Investigators believe that Pulley had ignored threats to his life and turned down an offer of $75,000 if he refused to testify and stopped cooperating with prosecutors. Detectives had told Pulley that they could not provide protection for him.
This sad story is just one example of what prosecutors across the country say is an increasingly serious problem. The Associated Press reported that prosecutors claim that there is not enough money in their budgets to keep witnesses safe. At the same time that witness protection programs are suffering or non-existent, there is increasing danger and intimidation on the streets, particularly so in gang related cases. This can prevent many witnesses from cooperating with police, investigators and prosecuting attorneys because the district attorneys can not assure any degree of safety or protection.
In some areas, the budget for witness protection has been slashed, while in other areas, there is simply no state money allotted to protect witnesses and the district attorneys offices must use money out of their own already strained budgets to provide safety for witnesses. In many cases, witnesses simply can not be protected and district attorneys are forced to make plea deals because there is no money available to keep witnesses safe during long trials.
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Lynn Abraham says that her office spent $1 million in 2007 to protect witnesses, but that was not enough. Abraham says that her office can only afford to relocate a limited number of people in order to protect them before they testify. She says that she would like to have more funding to help pay the living expenses of witnesses and provide them with some job training because when they are moved from place to place they have no way of earning money and are cut off from all family, friends and jobs.
Witness protection programs basically pick up witnesses and plop then down into a new life in a new environment. Without any resources, these people struggle to survive - all because they were an unfortunate victim of or witness to a crime.
In many cities in the U.S., t-shirts with the message "Stop Snitching" printed on them are being sold. During 2004, NBA star Carmelo Anthony was seen on an underground DVD that warned people that they could be murdered if they cooperated with or provided information to police.
There is also a membership website on the Internet that offers a national database of police informants for a monthly fee. Prosecutors say that all of these things show an increase in witness intimidation tactics and they need more money to combat it.
There is little data recorded about how many criminal cases fall apart and are dismissed because of witness intimidation or the number of witnesses that are injured or killed due to their cooperation with police, but prosecutors say it happens more and more all the time and frustrates their efforts.
Some larger cities have witness protection programs that are able to relocate witnesses and protect them until they are able to testify. This protection is provided on a case-by-case basis and is paid for by state reimbursements or worked into the prosecutors' budgets.
On a federal level, the U.S. Marshals Service runs a witness protection program in which witnesses are permanently relocated and assigned new identities. This program is usually only utilized for federal witnesses in major cases and is what is generally thought of when people think of "the witness protection program." This type of witness protection is quite complicated and rather rare.