Posted on 12/08/2006 12:43:23 PM PST by NormsRevenge
PHILADELPHIA - City prosecutors struggled in a high-profile case this week to get fearful witnesses to stick to their stories, finding a deeply entrenched "code of silence" at work even in the slaying of a 5-year-old girl.
In an example of witnesses "going south," or recanting testimony, four key witnesses in the Sept. 25 drive-by shooting of Casha'e Rivers took the stand in city court and withdrew statements they previously gave police.
In the most striking reversal, a witness whose statement was videotaped by police one day after the slaying told the judge he had just told police what they wanted to hear and that his detailed account of events wasn't true.
Despite the wavering testimony from the parade of witnesses, a judge decided there was enough evidence for 24-year-old Kevin Felder to stand trial in the kindergartner's death.
But the case highlighted just how much difficulty prosecutors in Philadelphia continue to face in building murder cases in a city that has recorded 375 homicides this year, putting it on a course to top last year's mark of 380, which had been the highest in eight years.
In many cases, witnesses are either refusing to come forward or recanting when they do provide evidence, authorities say. Prosecutors blame that trend for scores of homicides going unsolved each year.
At Tuesday's hearing, one witness changed his story by saying police had steered him to Felder during a photo lineup.
Another denied saying he was in the car when Felder allegedly opened fire.
Then Ronald Newton testified that much of what he said on a videotape played in the courtroom had been made up.
On the tape, Newton explained that the defendant had fired a half-dozen shots because he thought the car in which the girl was riding had been following them and that it belonged to a rival group.
On the witness stand, Newton gave a different account — as Felder, a burly felon with a five-page rap sheet, fixed his gaze on him.
"I just went with what they wanted to hear," Newton said. "I was nervous. So, I signed it (the statement) to get it over with."
Prosecutors were not surprised.
In March, they watched as each witness recanted in a trial over a gang shootout that killed a 10-year-old boy as he arrived at school. A judge hearing the non-jury trial still convicted the two young defendants, largely based on early statements police had obtained.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber said it's increasingly important for police to find witnesses quickly.
"Common sense will tell you that people are more likely to tell the truth right after an incident, when they are vulnerable and raw, when they haven't had time to talk to other witnesses and make things up," she said.
Fear among witnesses is not unfounded in Philadelphia.
Several trial witnesses have been killed in and around the city in recent years, including six relatives of a drug informant killed in an arson and a single mother ambushed a day before she was to plead to buying a gun for a felon.
In response, District Attorney Lynne Abraham has sought more funds to protect and even relocate witnesses. But authorities say few people want to leave behind their neighborhoods and extended families. Police broached the issue with at least one witness in the Felder case.
"I would have to talk to my grandmother, but I doubt it," Brian Shaw, 25, said in his police interview, which was read in court.
An initially cooperative Richard Carpenter, 39, who rescinded his mug-shot identification, had told police that Felder shot at him from a car about a half-hour before Casha'e was killed.
But on the stand, he said Felder wasn't the shooter.
"I'm trying not to walk through the neighborhood looking over my shoulder," he said.
Alisha Corley, of Philadelphia, is comforted by a family friend while she wears a T-shirt with the image of her daughter, 5-year-old Casha'e Rivers, Sept. 26, 2006, in Harrisburg, Pa. Kevin Felder is charged with firing the bullet that killed Rivers as she rode in the back of a car in Philadelphia in September. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
...and here some folks think its more dangerous living in
Iraq...
got to love these dem bastions of power..
Time to send a message and Fry Mumia for starters...
shut the gangs down, period,
mindless senseless mayhem can and should not be tolerated.
What a strange world. The mother is going to blame the courts instead of the killer.
She needs to cap that idiot.
Not surprising. The cops can't be everywhere at once, and witnesses will end up dead.
Of course they fear the thugs more than the police...the thugs make good on their threats. The police and the legal system are saddled by the sympathetic mindset that views these animals as misguided souls who can be rehabilitated.
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I guess the campaign is working.
"mindless senseless mayhem can and should not be tolerated."
Most wouldn't tolerate it. Seriously, no way. These people do, though. My days of feeling sorry for people are over. I see on television sometimes where people come from outside these neighborhoods, at their own peril, to film crimes becuase these people are too sorry to do anything themselves. It's just like Katrina. Sit on their lazy butts waiting for the government to do something and won't lift a finger to help out. SO egocentric and self-centered they won't even give over names to the cops so people keep dying. Cowards all of them.
Flame away.
New York isn't far away, and his absence is surprising. Why wouldn't someone so passionate about the violent death of a man of color want to get involved here, too?
I guess he's busy.
It's time to cut and run from these alleged neighborhoods. They hate the cops, they hate whitey, and they clearly loathe themselves. Fence 'em off and let 'em kill each other with bullets and AIDS.
Barbarians always win, over cowards.
So what's the time-table for pulling Americans out of Philadelphia?
It's a quagmire.
Hal Holbrook and the Crew from "Magnum Force" are needed for this sort of thing.
Everybody on the street knows:
'Snitches get stitches'
You have to think like a witness:
The kids dead, no sense in me gettin dead too.
Thats the way of it. It wont change until they get enough.
Five pages. This animal should have been in jail for life before having a chance to kill the girl. Maybe it is the courts' fault the girl is dead, because this guy was out.
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