Witness protection

WITNESS PROCTION IN INDIA- NEED FOR LEGISLATION - Pranjali P Devurkar & Reddy Pawan Kumar INTRODUCTION A witness is an indispensable part of a justice delivery system playing a pivotal role in determining the final outcome of a case. According to Bentham, witnesses are “eyes and ears of justice”. Often these “very” witnesses turn hostile, become untraceable or simply eliminated. In India, this tendency can mostly be seen in the cases involving rich influential persons, corrupt politicians who leave the system into a bizarre condition, making rule of law, a mockery. A quick walk into the recent past, such as in the infamous Best Bakery case, the Jessica Lal murder case, Asaram Bapu case and the most recent one the Vyapam scam illustrates a lament but increasing tendency amongst the witnesses to turn hostile due to various plausible reasons. These cases come as an eye opener exposing glaring defects in the mechanism of rendering justice, as for many of these courageous witnesses taking part in the justice rendering system can be life threatening sometimes resulting in death. The lack of a comprehensive witness protection program as part of the criminal justice system is effectively facilitating attempts to…

The Witness Protection Program How would you feel if you and your family would have to leave your home and friends behind? All because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Your deleted from the world, you no longer exist. One minute your Christopher Torres the next your James Austin. You are now in WITSEC otherwise known as the witness protection program. An organization created to protect you from those who want you dead. Gerald Shur is a well-known man in the WITSEC for…

Witness Protection is protection of a threatened witness or any person involved in the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial usually by police. Membership in the witness protection program is typically for life, and usually begins with a visit from U.S. marshals, whether anticipated or not. While many of the witnesses and their family members have time to make the decision and prepare for their new lives, others are forced to choose rather…

Introduction The film Madea’s Witness Protection is another classic film from Tyler Perry. It is about a Wall Street banker, George Needleman, whose life wasn’t perfect, but after he gets framed for a ponzi scheme by the mob, his and his families life gets even more complicated. They are then placed under witness protection, down in the South at Madea’s house. Where they soon become aware of her low-tolerance policies, and soon realize how good they had it back home. As George tries to fix…

When it comes to witness intimidation, there are several stake holders to take into account. These stakeholder can be greatly affected by the act of witness intimidation and the come from varying fields. These field span from social to legal with perspectives that vary as well. In no particular order, the first of the stakeholders include victim-witness units and crime victim advocacy groups (Debel, 2006). For these two stakeholders the main purpose of them is to be there for victims and…

given for this is that the social pressure being applied by others not intervening, makes it very difficult for someone to rebel against this and help, another is the diffusion of responsibility- the thinking that with all the other witnesses present someone else should do something. When studying the Bulger case, Levine argued that Latané and Darley’s bystander approach did not sufficiently explain the bystander behaviour displayed, (Levine 1999, cited in Byford 2015, p235), He was interested…

argument of how reliable eyewitness testimony is and will also consider the ways the criminal justice system should take more notice of problems already identified. Eyewitness testimony is when a witness comes forward within the courtroom to give their account of what occurred in relation to the trial which is based upon human perception and memory (Geoffrey M Stephenson, 1992 Psychology of Criminal Justice, p161.) “The reliability of eye witness testimony is a vastly complex subject” (Bruce…

Most of us think of ourselves as decent, helpful people. We wouldn’t turn our backs on someone in need of help, or would we? Bystanders are people who witness rapes, robberies, car wrecks, etc., and don’t take action to help; a large portion of society today are bystanders and don’t even realize it. In the essay, “Why People Don’t Help in a Crisis,” author John M. Darley states, “How can so many people watch another human being in distress and do nothing? Why don’t they help?” (13-14) Reactions…

innocent people falsely confessed or admitted to crimes they did not commit”. (Innocence Project, 2014) A person confessing to a crime is something that does happen. It happens when people are not in the right state of mind or not understanding a question that is being asked or being pressured by investigators these are just a few of the things that can cause an innocent person to confess to a crime. Eye-witness identification is a big part of wrongful convictions as there are so many people…

Impact of Violence on Society” Violence is the use of physical force to harm a certain individual. In The Lottery, and The Watchers readers witness the wicked aftermaths of two narrow minded societies, who without question follow their “Leaders”. It is certain to say that violence has an amazingly significant impact when it comes to the psychological behaviour, the mental state, and the social attributes a certain individual will gain, from witnessing violence, no matter in which way or form.…