Review of Termination and Appeals Notice to Witness Security Inmate Participants

摘要

The federal Witness Security (WitSec) Program includes prison inmates who have provided assistance to the government. Title 18 U.S.C. S 3521, Witness Relocation and Protection, is the statutory provision authorizing the WitSec Program and governing its administration. When a decision is made by the Office of Enforcement Operations (OEO) to terminate a participant from WitSec, the statute requires that the participant must be notified about the reasons for the proposed termination so that the participant can challenge the decision through established procedures. On April 10, 2013, in a concurring opinion related to a claim by a former inmate participant challenging his termination from the WitSec Program, two Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit expressed concern that OEO had failed to comply with procedural guarantees contained in 18 U.S.C. S 3521(d)(1) and (f) and asked that the opinion be forwarded to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Following our review of the concurring opinion, we undertook this review to determine whether OEO was complying.