Do witnesses get enough protection? What can be done?

Dave!

Hey folks,

Just wondering what people think about this!

I considered putting it in the politics forum but decided I'm more interested in the legal aspect.

Obviously there has been an increase in murder and gangland crime in general, and the point has been made that the reason why the gangsters are able to carry on doing what they're doing is because it's so hard to secure a conviction against them. And the reason for this is because there is not enough evidence, mainly because witnesses are afraid to testify!

I know if I witnessed a murder, I would have to seriously seriously give alot of thought to whether I would testify or not. Is it worth endangering my life to put a murderer in jail? That's more a topic for humanities.

But I know that if I knew that my identity would be kept secret for example, that would make my decision a hell of a lot easier.

And I'm sure this where the legal problems would come in. Surely the defence should have the right to examine the witness and point out to the jury that they have a criminal record as long as your arm, they hold a grudge against the defendant, etc.

But is there nothing that can be done to make it easier for someone to testify against gangster scum? What's currently in place that facilitates this? To be honest I'm not really aware.

Tom Young

But they are innocent until provent guilty!?

So as not to deflate the point you are trying to make there have been some reforms of late and practices in court which are providing additional protections.

The witness protection program - Gilligan, Ward cases.
The Criminal Evidence Act 1992 - Video Link Evidence.
The Criminal Justice Act 2006 - Allowing admissibility of Hearsay.

Recently also the Gardai were given shield protection in the Coronor's court during their depositions to the inquest into the midlands postal shooting.

johnnyskeleton

The people who don't testify are usually either part of the same gang, a rival gang, or living in close proximity to the killers. The gangs can't really threaten randomers who see them on the street, because that randomer probably isn't in easy reach of the gangs.

So there is very little benefit to anonymity as the witness is probably already known to the accused.

The courts currently have a form of anonymous testifying, in that for Offences against the state, a garda can testify as to his reasonable belief that an accused is a member of an unlawful organisation etc. This belief is usually based on "confidential information" i.e. an informer or another member dishing the dirt. But this is highly unfair, and perhaps unconstitutional.

I don't think this should be extended any further. McDowell wanted to extend it so that Gardai should be able to offer their opinion that a person is a member of a gang, but I think this fell by the wayside in the Criminal Justice Act, 2007 debates.

A good witness protection system would need a lot of manpower, especially in prisons, but in my view would probably be a good thing. Generally, only people who have nothing left to loose would enter into it.

I also think that apart from witnesses being scared to testify, they are also often loyal to their friends and so won't testify against them. The bosses are probably careful not to get their hands dirty either.

So I don't think that there is much more that can be done to protect witnesses - fear of reprisals is often a convenient excuse for them to say they don't want to rat on their mates.

Tom Young

**Claps**

Victor

Traditionally, most people who have been murdered have been killed by family and friends. Solving the case was relatively straight forward as all the investigating officers had to do was observe those people and see which ones were acting strangely (together with the usual means, motive, oppurtunity, etc. with most motives down to profit, advantage, reward, greed, love, hate, envy or jealousy).

Part of the problem with gangland-style killings are that people are being killed by relative strangers or even by complete strangers at the behest of relative strangers.

So the only readily available witnesses are those present at the actual killing. These people are ususally harder to intimidate than family and friends. So I suspect that a witness protectin programme has only limited use.