So are you saying she can be prosecuted?
“So are you saying she can be prosecuted?” To answer this narrowly, this case proves anyone can be prosecuted for anything. But being prosecuted successfully? That’s different.
Criminal prosecution is different than a civil lawsuit. Don’t confuse the two. Kalina v. Fletcher was a civil lawsuit, not a criminal prosecution. The standards and types of proof are quite different. But both a civil suit and a criminal prosecution would be very difficult to prove in this case.
A prosecutor pretty much has immunity for what they say and do in the Courtroom. That’s why I never spoke to the press, or just gave them bland NFL coaches post-game press conference type answers. But in the Courtroom I could say and do practically anything as long as it was supported by evidence. You wouldn’t believe the things I got to say about criminal defendants.
Criminal prosecution would require you to prove that the prosecutor knew in advance that the witness was lying, and that the prosecutor did more than put them on the stand to tell the lie. It would require proof that the prosecutor had some sort of personal animosity toward the defendant and assisted somehow in perpetuating the lie. Maybe this isn’t a legal standard, but what I would consider a practical one. Witnesses lie all the time and lawyers can always claim “plausible deniability” in that they are advocates. It’s not for them to decide who is lying. That’s for the jury. But if a prosecutor knew it was a lie, believed it to be a lie, and still intentionally portrayed it as the truth to convict an innocent person, that’s a start. You would probably have to add to it that the prosecutor also deliberately concealed truthful exculpatory information. If yes to all of that, they could be prosecuted successfully.
It has to rise to the level of a Nifong to get there. This case probably falls short of that standard.