Posted on 11/06/2009 12:22:05 AM PST by The Magical Mischief Tour
The case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday sounded like a television movie, a tale of wrongful imprisonment and the slow, inexorable wheels of justice. Prosecutors under pressure to close the case of a cop killer settle on two young African Americans.
They fabricate evidence, coerce perjury and bury the investigation of a white suspect.
A sympathetic prison barber unearths the investigative records that eventually lead courts to free the convicted men after years behind bars. And the men seek retribution for the prosecutors who framed them.
But here's the twist: The prosecutors say that they can't be sued for anything they do in their official capacities, even framing suspects.
It is not an argument outside the legal mainstream. The federal government, a majority of states and thousands of prosecuting attorneys are supporting the proposition that prosecutors must receive absolute immunity for their actions at trial to do their jobs properly.
And that extends, they say, to any investigative work they do before the suspect is charged. On Wednesday, justices were both supportive of the concept and appalled at its application. "So the law is: the more deeply you've involved in the wrong, the more likely you are to be immune?" Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the attorney for the two former prosecutors. "That's a strange proposition." Justice John Paul Stevens called it "perverse."
But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a former U.S. attorney, said prosecutors must have protection from lawsuits or they would be open to being hauled into civil court by any criminal they put away.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So where was the Washington Post when an out-of-control prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case concealed DNA evidence to try to wrongfully convict white college students of raping a black woman?
Oh wait, the people had the wrong skin color in that case.
Immunity from Prosecutorial Misconduct?
I think not.
I am going to have to think about this one.
Normally I would side with the prosecutors, but there have been too many cases recently where government officials have knowingly and maliciously fabricated things.
This will not have a happy ending.
But you don’t understand, It is necessary that you be Guilty.
Don't forget about the idiot in Texas who used his position as a prosecutor to run Tom Delay out of the U S Senate.
And, while I don't think that civil suits against prosecutors is a good idea, there definitely needs to be a mechanism whereby prosecutors and judges who abuse the powers entrusted to them can be brought to justice.
Yes, some currently exist, but they are nowhere near strong enough (in my not so humble opinion) and the judges and prosecutors do not face much in the way of genuine sanction.
At the bare minimum, a prosecutor guilty of knowingly sending an innocent man to prison should be incarcerated for AT LEAST as long as the innocent man was.
In fact, you can make a case that a prosecutor that causes an innocent man to be sentenced to death has, at the very least, committed attempted murder and should be subject to the same penalty.
In cases where an innocent man is executed under the same circumstances -- the prosecutor should also be sentenced to die.
Tell them: jailed or shot, you choose.
Absolute prosecutor immunity has always been one of my pet peeves. Ambitious prosecutors should not be protected from framing up the innocent based upon manufactured testimony and fabricated evidence. They should only have limited liability - the same as the police.
This principle is found in the Law of Moses, BTW.
I agree completely. Often difficult, of course, to prove whether the guy was intentionally framing the defendnt or honestly mistaken about his guilt.
There is always tremendous pressure to fabricate or spin evidence to convict someone you "know" is guilty but against whom the evidence isn't quite good enough.
KNOWINGLY suppressing exculpatory evidence should subject the prosecutors to the same sentence that the “perp” received or would have received.
Big problems with your last sentence..."know" someone is guilty is no excuse for falsely going to court to prove without sufficient evidence..
Prosecutors "knowing" has changed my opinion on the death penalty...too many prosecutors "knowing" put innocent men in jail...It can be a stepping stone to higher office for some of these scum bags......
Quite true.
However, in probably most cases of this type the guy may be innocent of the particular crime with which he is charged, but is not an “innocent person” in the usual sense of the term. He is probably a career criminal.
There is an element of poetic justice in a guy who commits hundreds of crimes and gets away with it being locked up for something he didn’t do.
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