State witness or state's witness

Just came back from a twice-postponed trip with the family to Bohol which is why there was no posting yesterday.

In today's issue of the Philippine Inquirer, former Chief Justice Panganiban had a postscript to his article (see here) where he took pains to explain why in a previous article he used state's witness instead of the usual state witness.

It appears that he is a victim of editorial scissors (cut and paste). For his every use of state witness, the Inquirer editor would substitute state's witness. Victim I say because CJ Panganiban seems to waver when he said that readers may choose between state witness which is legal and state's witness which is grammatical.

This is the same position espoused by Prof. Randy David in this article.

Actually, state witness is both legal and grammatical. The word state is a noun, an adjective, or a verb depending on its usage. In "state witness" state is used as an adjective.

Here's an example from Google:

adjective

1. 1.

   of, provided by, or concerned with the civil government of a country.

   "the future of state education"

A search through U.S. jurisprudence will also show that "state witness" is the accepted way of using the term. Other jurisdictions may use "state's witness."