Justice in jeopardy as prosecutors struggle for testimony from nigger eye
witnesses
Hamilton County judges were so concerned about witnesses being intimidated
by audience members using cell phones to take their pictures and circulate
them in their neighborhood that the phones were banned
Dante Williams shot and killed Adrian Battle in 2006, a crime that went
unsolved for seven years because witnesses were terrified of being shot
themselves.
In 2011, Joe Harris was convicted of murder – but only after Hamilton
County prosecutors jailed a star witness to ensure the frightened man
would testify.
In another case, a witness was so scared of being perceived as cooperative
that he told prosecutors he would testify only if he was handcuffed and
brought to the courthouse in a police cruiser so it would look like he
wasn’t cooperating.
These cases are symptomatic of a problem Hamilton County prosecutors say
is growing: the number of witnesses too frightened to testify. That, they
say, makes it harder for prosecutors to win convictions and easier for
some violent crimes to go unpunished – and possibly jeopardizes justice.
“Sometimes witnesses become so concerned about their safety they won’t
talk about it even though it happened right in front of them,” Assistant
Hamilton County Prosecutor David Prem said.
“It’s an issue in murder cases,” veteran defense attorney Norm Aubin, who
has tried dozens of murder cases, said of victim-witness intimidation.
“It’s gotten a lot worse.”
The killing of Battle and resulting murder case against Williams ended in
June. Instead of a murder conviction and sentence of life in prison,
Williams pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and received the minimum
sentence possible – three years in prison for killing Battle and one for
using a gun. The four-year prison sentence was a victory for Prem because
Williams was ultimately punished in a case in which an uncooperative
witness meant a very weak case for prosecutors.
“Had more people been available as witnesses, we may have been able to
convict him of more serious crimes,” Prem said. “If we don’t have
witnesses, we can’t prove cases.”
Police believe Battle, a doorman at the now-closed First Note Cafe in
Walnut Hills, was a witness in another criminal case against a friend of
Williams and was killed so he wouldn’t testify, Prem said. Williams
approached Battle at the entrance to the bar at 12:21 a.m. May 13, 2006,
pointed a shotgun and shot him to death.
The issue in prosecuting Williams was the star witness, a pregnant woman
who saw the shooting, who was too afraid to testify. She and other
witnesses in that case were so scared, Prem said, that he believed the
best he could do was offer a plea bargain with the minimum prison sentence
or face losing the case.
“If you read in the paper that someone charged with murder gets (four)
years, there’s a good reason for it,” Prem said.
Prem, a veteran prosecutor who has tried scores of murder cases, often
warns jurors of the common adage of the street: “Snitches get stitches and
wind up in ditches.”
Prosecutors began using a new tactic in 2010 that allows them to withhold
the names of witnesses in cases involving violent crimes after a witness
to a Hamilton County murder case was shot and killed. Now, if prosecutors
are worried about the safety of a witness, they can ask for a special
hearing in which a judge decides if witness names can be withheld until
trial.
Witness intimidation factored into recent cases:
• Ira Israel was acquitted in April. He was accused of murder in the 2011
death of Santino Furr. Reluctant witnesses who had been intimidated and
Israel’s friends in the audience at trial, prosecutors said, helped weaken
their case and led to Israel’s acquittal.
• Rashid Lattimore was acquitted in June. Prosecutors used the law to
withhold the names of witnesses against Lattimore until opening statements
before the jury. That night, one witness had 36 shots fired into his house
and then refused to testify, another refused to come to court and a third
cried when police showed up to escort him to court to testify.
Judges now ban cellphones from courtrooms after some audience members used
them to take photos of witnesses and show the photos in their neighborhood
as an intimidation tactic, hoping to prevent witnesses from testifying.
Some witnesses simply refuse to testify even under the threat of jail.
Ashlee King told grand jurors about a shooting she witnessed, but when she
was called to testify at trial, she refused. Hamilton County Common Pleas
Court Judge Ethna Cooper threw King in jail for 59 days before King
finally testified. The three co-defendants, based partly on King’s
testimony, were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
“I had to send a message,” the judge said of jailing King. “It was
important to me that she testify to show the system works, the system
cannot be intimidated, the system cannot be manipulated.”
Prem believes witness intimidation is largely relegated to cases involving
violent crimes. “I think the perception is worse than the actual reality,”
Prem said.
Numbers prove him right. Since 2004, the number of intimidation
convictions has been steady. Last year, though, there were 10 convictions,
the fewest in a decade.
Aubin, though, believes while the numbers are flat, the intensity of that
intimidation has increased.
“You didn’t have these wild, young drug shooters,” Aubin said of recent
cases.
The intimidation, Prem said, is a reality, one that must be addressed.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people in our society want to live in a safe
environment. The cost for that is when you know something about a case,
you’ve got to come to court and testify truthfully about what you know,”
he said.
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