A key legislator and victims’ advocates are calling on Colorado to strengthen a flawed witness-protection program.
Rep. Terrance Carroll, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was distressed to learn in a Denver Post series last week “how far out of line we are” in safeguarding witnesses and informing them that a state protection program exists.
“We can do a better job,” he said. “First, we need to give greater notice to victims of crimes. We need to implement the existing law. The second thing, we need to find money somewhere so that we can adequately fund the witness-protection program. Right now, it’s a toothless tiger.”
Sixteen witnesses and their relatives, friends or associates have been killed since Colorado created its witness-protection program, and death threats often preceded the murders. Ten witnesses who survived murder attempts or received death threats said nobody told them Colorado had a protection program. Prosecutors have filed more than 2,000 felony cases of crimes against witnesses since 1998, but the state program spends an average of just $43,000 a year to protect the lives of witnesses.
Threat is worsening
Steven Siegel, the Denver district attorney’s liaison to Colorado’s witness-protection program, said growing threats to witnesses may necessitate new partnerships with the $38 million federal witness-protection program.
“The nature of witness protection and the nature of threats against witnesses is going through a transformation,” Siegel said.
Nationally, witness intimidation is gaining sophistication as gangs use computers to track, identify and threaten witnesses, “networking among themselves to accomplish certain goals,” he said. “That is going to present challenges to us.”
Protection is pricey
Siegel doubts that Colorado’s program, which has a $50,000 budget this year, is up to the challenge.
“If I have a witness who has an established life here, and he has a job and maybe his wife has a job and maybe their kids are in school and they are unlucky enough to be witnesses to a terrible act? The only way to keep them safe is to pick them up and take them out of that world,” Siegel said.
“Think of the list of things that has to go into that,” he said. “They have to sell the house. You have to protect their identity, find new schools for their children. It’s very expensive.”
Spokesmen for Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado Department of Public Safety said the Post series highlighted the need to inform law enforcement officers and witnesses that the state has a witness-protection program.
The governor “believes that protecting witnesses is of the utmost importance,” spokesman Evan Dreyer said. “One of the tasks before us is how to increase the awareness of this program.”
After Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancée were killed before he could testify in a murder trial, Colorado enacted a new witness-protection law last year. Among other things, it required training for law enforcement officers about the state program and a “risk assessment” model to identify and help threatened witnesses.
Despite that, some law enforcement officers still don’t know the program exists, and the model hasn’t been completed.
DPS spokesman Lance Clem said a draft version of the risk- assessment model was issued Tuesday, is being reviewed and should be released soon. It includes a questionnaire for police to use whenever a witness reports threats or intimidation.
Current system lacking
Randy Saucedo, advocacy director for the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, questions the fundamental soundness of a protection program that requires local police and prosecutors to find money to relocate witnesses, then hope for reimbursement from a state board.
When Saucedo was a victims’ advocate for Commerce City police, he said he had to scrounge money from a drug- seizure fund to protect a domestic-violence victim who believed her husband would kill her when he got out of prison.
He also found the state reimbursement program remarkably short of rules, procedures or guidelines.
“I find it very frightening that the program isn’t taken seriously enough when you’re talking about human lives,” he said. “There has to be something upfront. There has to be a real commitment from some state entity to provide real resources so this program can be used.”
David Olinger: 303-954-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com and his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe, were killed before he could testify in a murder trial.
