Reading Room Document

Authority of United States Marshals to Protect Witnesses Appearing Before the Civil Rights Commission and its State Advisory Committees

This opinion advised J. Edgar Hoover, then the director of the FBI, that United States marshals could protect witnesses from actual or threatened force when they appear before civil rights commissions, because those witnesses enjoy constitutional rights to testify before state committees. The memo suggested, however, that the federal government should avoid involvement if the FBI believes that state and local law enforcement would provide adequate protection.

February 19, 1962