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Topic: Material witness

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	Material witness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A material witness is a witness who possesses relevant and important information in a criminal investigation or trial.
		Under United States law, material witnesses can not be detained unless the judge believes the person in question will flee to avoid participating in the investigation.
		Currently, the material witness statute is abused, at least 70 have been detained under the facade of material witnesses, but were truly suspected as criminals.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Material_witness (121 words)

	Report: U.S. abusing material witness statute
		The material witness law, enacted in 1984, allows the government to arrest persons who are needed as witnesses in ongoing cases and who it argues might not comply with a conventional subpoena.
		The two groups claim that almost half of the witnesses were never brought before a grand jury or a court to testify, and that many were not told the reason for their arrest or allowed immediate access to a lawyer.
		The report alleges that about one third of the 70 material witnesses mentioned in the document were held for at least two months and one was imprisoned for a year.
	www.infowars.com /articles/ps/us_abusing_material_witness_statute.htm (688 words)

	t r u t h o u t - Justice Department Abuses Material Witness Law
		Holding as "witnesses" people who are in fact suspects sets a disturbing precedent for future use of this extraordinary government power to deprive citizens and others of their liberty.
		Many of the seventy material witnesses whose cases are addressed in this report were arrested and incarcerated on the basis of evidence that would never have sufficed for criminal arrest and pre-trial detention.
		Witnesses were traumatized by being held in solitary confinement with no understanding of why they were there; they were allowed limited, if any, contact with their ives and children; and they often were subjected to taunts and sometimes even physical abuse by their guards.
	www.truthout.org /docs_2005/062805J.shtml (2620 words)

	Material Witness Law is Being Abused (Human Rights Watch, 27-5-2004)
		By arresting him as a material witness, it was able to bypass constitutional guarantees afforded to criminal defendants that protect against abuses of state power.
		Mayfield, however, is luckier than most material witnesses: He was released after 16 days of incarceration, the FBI has issued an apology to him and the court has since released his records.
		FBI agents have interrogated witnesses for hours and made threats in their "interviews." In December 2001, for example, investigators subjected material witness Abdallah Higazy to so many threats against him and his family that he falsely confessed.
	hrw.org /english/docs/2004/05/27/usdom8631.htm (572 words)

	St. John's Law Review: Witness detention and intimidation: The history and future of material witness law
		The manner in which material witnesses are treated presents a dilemma between the constitutional rights of the individual and the needs of the criminal justice system.
		Material witness law is unique because of the potential carte blanche it provides to the government and law enforcement officials who may abuse it.
		No material witness shall be detained because of inability to comply with any condition of release if the testimony of such witness can adequately be secured by deposition, and further detention is not necessary to prevent a failure of justice.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa3735/is_200207/ai_n9109028 (846 words)

	CBS News \| What Is A Material Witness? \| October 25, 2001 21:44:51
		Usually, law enforcement officials will hold someone as a "material witness" when they are concerned that the person will flee their jurisdiction but don't yet have the goods on that person to actually charge him with a crime.
		The "material witness" procedure is one way for the police to get their hands on someone right away, to get someone off the street immediately, and see where the particular investigation goes from there.
		Sometimes a material witness is charged with a crime as a result of that investigation.
	www.cbsnews.com /stories/2001/09/15/news/opinion/courtwatch/main311430.shtml (618 words)

	The New York Times > Washington > For Post-9/11 Material Witness, It Is a Terror of a Different Kind
		A as a material witness to the crime of Mr.
		Though the law requires that material witnesses be held "for a reasonable period of time until the deposition of the witness can be taken," such sworn interviews are seldom used in terrorism investigations.
		Material witness arrests outside the context of terrorism are historically quite common.
	www.nytimes.com /2004/08/19/politics/19witness.html?ei=5090&en=05e37bc54a70969b&ex=1250568000&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position= (2508 words)

	Held in limbo... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The Justice Department has refused to say how many material witnesses have been taken into custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, or to reveal any information about them, including their names or which courts are supervising the cases.
		Another material witness, Jose Padilla, who allegedly was plotting to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, was held for a month in jail before President Bush declared him an enemy combatant.
		We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
	www.capitolhillblue.com /cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=11&num=1146&printer=1 (1912 words)

	Material witness
		A survey focusing on direct restorative materials and ancillary materials and supplies was issued by the editorial and research departments of DPR in May 2003 to a random sampling of 2,000 general practitioners in the United States.
		A survey focusing on direct restorative materials was issued by the editorial and research departments of DPR in March 2001 to a random sampling of 2,000 general practitioners in the United States.
		A survey focusing on indirect restorative materials was issued by the editorial and research departments of DPR in March 2001 to a random sampling of 2,000 general practitioners in the United States.
	www.dentalproducts.net /xml/display.asp?file=2210 (1272 words)

	washingtonpost.com: Material Witness Law Has Many In Limbo (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		A judge must approve the warrant, and the witness is entitled to a bond hearing and a court-appointed attorney.
		The law does not require that a material witness be brought before a grand jury.
		The material witnesses are a subset of the Bush administration's overall detention strategy since Sept. 11, 2001.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn/A31438-2002Nov23?language=printer (1800 words)

	Discourse.net: 'Free Country' Datum III--"Material Witness" Detentions
		Kidd was detained as a material witness for 16 months, some in jail and the rest forced to live with his in-laws where he had been staying temporarily prior to leaving for his scholarship in Saudi Arabia.
		For Post-9/11 Material Witness, It Is a Terror of a Different Kind: Abdullah al Kidd was on his way to Saudi Arabia to work on his doctorate in Islamic studies in March 2003 when he was arrested as a material witness in a terrorism investigation.
		Either the material witness statute is being abused to hold those individuals we might think we want to charge later, whether or not the evidence exists now, or else our law enforcement is so blind and halfwitted that only in half of the cases do they even arrest the right individual.
	www.discourse.net /archives/2004/08/free_country_datum_iiimaterial_witness_detentions.html (4893 words)

	Litigation Professional Information Center: Federal Material Witness Statute Applies to Grand Jury Proceedings
		The federal material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. §3144, authorizes the detention of witnesses for grand jury proceedings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Nov. 7, resolving a split of authority within the circuit.
		No material witness may be detained because of inability to comply with any condition of release if the testimony of such witness can adequately be secured by deposition, and if further detention is not necessary to prevent a failure of justice.
		Judge Chester J. Straub concurred in the opinion except with respect to the court's conclusion that the material witness arrest warrant was valid.
	litigationcenter.bna.com /pic2/lit.nsf/id/BNAP-5TFL8S?OpenDocument (1216 words)

	MATERIAL WITNESS ABUSE (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The Justice Department has refused to say how many material witnesses have been taken into custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, or to disclose any information about them, including their names or which courts are supervising the cases.
		Another material witness, Jose Padilla, who allegedly was plotting to explode a radioactive ''dirty bomb'' in the United States, was held for 32 days in a Manhattan jail before President Bush declared him an ''enemy combatant'' and the government transferred him to a naval brig in Charleston, S.C., where he is still held.
		It is unknown whether the 44 cases represent all the material witnesses taken into custody since Sept. 11, 2001, or a fraction of them.
	secure.cppax.org /Iraq/background/materialWitness11-24-02.html (546 words)

	Boston.com / News / Nation / Ore. attorney is held in Madrid bombing
		Brandon Mayfield, a US citizen, was taken into custody on a material witness warrant, said a senior law enforcement official in Washington, D.C., speaking on condition of anonymity.
		Mayfield's fingerprints were found on materials related to the Madrid bombings, said a second senior official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
		Material witness warrants, usually kept confidential by a federal judge, are used by the government to hold people suspected of having direct knowledge about a crime or to allow time for further investigation into the witness.
	www.boston.com /news/nation/articles/2004/05/07/ore_attorney_is_held_in_madrid_bombing (526 words)

	Material Witness and Suspect. What's the Difference? Emily Yoffe
		CNN reported last night that three people taken into custody in an FBI raid in Boston are material witnesses to the terrorist attacks but that investigators say they are not suspects.
		A material witness is someone who possesses facts about a case that could be helpful to law enforcement investigators, but who was not part of the criminal activity and did not knowingly assist in it.
		"Material witness" is law enforcement parlance; lawyers refer to such a person as a "subject." Suspects (or "targets" as lawyers call them) are people believed to have been involved in the criminal activity.
	www.slate.com /id/1008287 (423 words)

	law.com - Prosecutors Win Big in Terrorism Ruling
		The decision by a federal appeals court allowing the government to detain material witnesses pursuant to grand jury investigations was a significant victory for an administration searching for every edge it can get in prosecuting the war on terror.
		One concern addressed by the court is that the government might use the arrest of a material witness as a pretext to seize someone suspected of a crime, a possibility that Scheindlin said would be an illegal use of the statute.
		Despite the 2nd Circuit's agreement that using the material witness law to detain a person suspected of the crime would be improper, Jacobs said, Scheindlin made no such finding in the case of Awadallah.
	www.law.com /jsp/article.jsp?id=1067351008834 (1499 words)

	JS Online: Judge OKs Material Witness Holdings (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		NEW YORK - The jailing of material witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigation was found constitutional by a federal judge, who criticized an earlier ruling freeing a Jordanian detainee.
		The witness based his request, in part, on the reasoning of Judge Shira Scheindlin, who in April tossed out perjury charges against a Jordanian college student, Osama Awadallah, accused of lying about his associations with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
		Scheindlin had ruled that federal statute does not authorize the detention of material witnesses solely for the purpose of a grand jury investigation - a decision criticized by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
	www.jsonline.com /news/attack/ap/jul02/ap-attacks-materia071202.asp?format=print (329 words)

	CCR (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Osama Awadallah, a Jordanian student who may have briefly met two of the al-Qaeda hijackers, was arrested as a material witness for a grand jury investigation.
		He was not arrested based on probable cause to believe that he had committed any crime, but was only held as a material witness in a grand jury investigation.
		The court held that the statute only allowed the detention of material witnesses in the pretrial stage and not the grand jury context.
	www.ccr-ny.org /v2/legal/september_11th/sept11Article.asp?ObjID=6DS3vd50kV&Content=88 (254 words)

	SSRN-Indefinite Material Witness Detention Without Probable Cause: Thinking Outside the Fourth Amendment by Michael ...
		The issue arises out of Attorney General Ashcroft's announcement shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that the aggressive detention of material witnesses [was] vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying new attacks.
		The judge in that case suggested a process in which the Government could obtain the grand jury testimony of a material witness, while minimizing the intrusion on the material witness' liberty interests by affording them their freedom via bail or a deposition.
		As presently drafted, and as construed by the Second Circuit, the federal material witness statute is ambiguous and subject to conflicting interpretation.
	papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=494763 (540 words)

	SurfWax: News, Reviews and Articles On Material Witness
		Wright was called as a material witness in the first trial in part because he was able to identify the ring that was found with Till's badly mutilated body in 1955, he said.
		His arrest as a material witness in the terror investigation, Metzner said, was followed by a presentment before a judge, not at an arraignment...
		She found that the Material Witness Statute was abused by the government and it could not be used to detain an individual for grand jury proceedings...
	www.lawkt.com /files/Material_Witness.html (5113 words)

	civilrights.org -- Report Documents Government Misuse of Material Witness Law in Fight Against Terrorism
		According to the report, many witnesses were not informed of the reason for their arrest, were denied immediate access to a lawyer, and/or were not permitted to see the evidence used against them--fundamental protections to which they would have been entitled had they been held as criminal suspects instead of material witnesses.
		The report explains that the material witness law was used to hold individuals who the Justice Department really wanted to arrest on criminal or immigration charges, but lacked evidence to do so.
		Witnesses were allegedly arrested at gunpoint and held in solitary confinement--the kind of treatment usually reserved for prisoners accused of the most dangerous crimes.
	www.civilrights.org /issues/cj/details.cfm?id=33057 (451 words)

	Questions raised over material witness statute \| The San Diego Union-Tribune
		The Justice Department has portrayed the material witness statute as a powerful tool in the war against terrorism, giving authorities the right to jail suspects who they say might otherwise flee the country and allowing investigators valuable time to gather evidence.
		The 1984 material witness statute was crafted to help ensure a defendant's right to have witnesses testify on their behalf.
		Mayfield, 37, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert, was detained May 6 under a material witness warrant in connection with the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800 others.
	www.signonsandiego.com /uniontrib/20040523/news_1n23jailed.html (730 words)

	FBI Abuses Witness Detention
		What we know of the department's recent use of its material witness powers is from personal accounts, from the men who have been arrested and later freed.
		It is far easier to arrest someone as a material witness than to take someone in as a suspect, since you don't have to show probable cause of criminal wrongdoing.
		We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
	www.commondreams.org /views01/1014-03.htm (1017 words)

	Groups: U.S. Misuses Material Witness Law (phillyBurbs.com) \| Cabinet/State Department/Pentagon
		The material witness law, enacted in 1984, allows the arrest and detention of witnesses who might flee before testifying in criminal cases.
		The report is the first comprehensive look at how the administration has used the material witness law to detain terrorism suspects when the government lacked sufficient criminal evidence to hold them.
		"They threw witnesses in a fl hole where they didn't have access to the basis for their arrest, weren't provided with lawyers, weren't allowed to talk to family members and were held in complete secrecy with no concrete end to their detention," said Anjana Malhotra, the report's author.
	www.phillyburbs.com /pb-dyn/news/27-06262005-507462.html (548 words)

	CNN - FBI releases photo of clinic bombing 'material witness' - February 3, 1998
		BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- The FBI on Tuesday released a new photograph of the man identified as a "material witness" in the fatal bombing of a Birmingham women's clinic last week.
		Rudolph is being sought only as a witness, due to the violence associated with this crime, he should not be approached by anyone outside of law enforcement," said a joint statement released by the FBI and the ATF.
		Authorities emphasized that Rudolph is being sought not as a suspect, but as a "material witness" -- someone who is considered necessary to solving a case and can be arrested and held against his or her will.
	www.cnn.com /US/9802/03/clinic.explosion (1021 words)

	PBS - THE WEST - Cayuse Request for a Material Witness during the trial for the Whitman Massacre 1851
		That the materiality of said witness was not known in time to have him in attendance at this term of the court.
		He expects & believes that said witness will prove that the late Dr Whitman administered medicines to many of the Cayuse Indians and that afterwards a large number of them died, including amongst them the wives and children of some of these defendants.
		Witness will also prove it is the law of the Cayuse Indians to kill bad medicine men.
	www.pbs.org /weta/thewest/resources/archives/two/w62cayuse.htm (140 words)

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