Monthly Law Journal Article: Public Protection: Witnesses, 2009 (4) AELE Mo. L. J. 101.
     A witness' wife and children sued prosecutors and the estate of a deceased police chief, claiming that they failed to adequately protect him from murder by a man accused of sexually molesting the decedent's children. A federal appeals court rejected a trial court's ruling that the facts supported the plaintiffs' claim of a "state-created danger" causing the decedent's death in violation of due process. It ruled that a reasonable jury could not find that the defendants acted in a manner shocking to the conscience when they planned and carried out the accused man's arrest at the decedent's home and took his confession there. The court also found that the alleged failure to warn the plaintiffs about the accused man's prior threatening or menacing conduct towards the police chief could not be a basis of liability. Walter v. Pike County, Pa., No. 06-5034, 2008 U.S. App. Lexis 19760 (3rd Cir.).  
     Witness to gunfight between two rival drug gangs, who was subsequently shot after police allegedly publicly identified her as a cooperating witness failed to show that police officials had done so as part of a "plot" to obtain her cooperation, that her life was deliberately put in danger, or that the police commissioner was directly involved in the purported plot. None of these allegations could be reasonably arrived at on the basis of newspaper articles which appeared concerning the gunfight and its aftermath. Cherry v. Philadelphia, No. 06-1322, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 3008 (3rd Cir.).[N/R]
     Alleged failure of police and prosecutors to protect 15-year-old girl from being killed on orders from murderer she agreed to testify against could not be a basis for liability, even if they made promises of protection they did not keep. Witness was not in custody, and the defendants' actions did not create the danger to her. Rivera v. State of Rhode Island, No. 04-1568, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 4626 (1st Cir. 2005). [2005 LR May]
     City and police officer were not liable for murder of subpoenaed witness and her son allegedly by the brother of the suspect against whom the witness was to testify. The mere fact that the witness had been subpoenaed did not impose a duty to provide protection. The mere fact that some police protection was provided for a time and then subsequently withdrawn did not mean that the city created the danger to the witness. Clarke v. Sweeney, 312 F. Supp. 2d 277 (D. Conn. 2004 ). [N/R]
     The mere fact that a murder witness had been served with a subpoena to compel her to testify did not create any affirmative obligation to protect her, so there was not liability when she was allegedly killed outside her home by the alleged perpetrator. She was not in custody and law enforcement did not create the danger to her by issuing the subpoena to testify. She was already in danger from the alleged perpetrator who could reasonably assume that she would testify. Rivera v. Rhode Island, 312 F. Supp. 2d 175 (D.R.I. 2004). [N/R]
     292:61 Officers questioning gang member about murder had no duty to provide him with protection against retaliation by fellow gang members for providing statement implicating fellow gang member Hernandez v. City of Pomona, 49 Cal.App.4th 1492, 57 Cal.Rptr.2d 406, 1996 Cal App. Lexis 955 (1996).
     {N/R} Prosecutors entitled to absolute immunity from liability for gang murder of witness they subpoenaed to testify as witness to gang crime, despite alleged assurances to him that he would be safe Falls v. Superior Court, 42 Cal.App.4th 1031, 49 Cal.Rptr. 906, 1996 Cal App. Lexis 140