I was a Chief Deputy Prosecutor when Kalina v. Fletcher was handed down. It does not say what your quick blurb says it does. Kalina holds that a prosecutor DOES have absolute immunity if they draft the Probable Cause affidavit, when the affidavit is signed by someone else. It is only when the prosecutor signs the affidavit themselves UNDER OATH that they lose full immunity and only receive qualified immunity.
This did not change any of the policies of my office at the time of the opinion. I had already determined that NO prosecutor was going to make a statement of probable cause under oath. That is for the police officer to do. Prosecutors are advocates, not witnesses.
I regularly conducted training sessions to police officers on how to write PC affidavits, and always cautioned them about false statements or writing misleading affidavits. I had two detectives terminated for fudging their PC affidavits, although the statements didn’t rise to the level of outright perjury. It was more for what they omitted than for what they said. I took sworn probable cause very seriously.
Now, I suppose that if there were a case where a plaintiff could prove that a prosecutor deliberately and knowingly suborned a perjured PC affidavit, they would lose their immunity. But a prosecutor willing to do such a thing is unfit for their job and should be compelled to do something else anyway.
So are you saying she can be prosecuted?
Prior to posting this ruling, FNC reported that Corey signed the affidavit that led to Zimmerman’s arrest and prosecution.
As you know, she was not the advocate in this case. If she did sign the affidavit, she could be held civilly liable. You certainly would not disagree with that, would you.
That said, the FNC report may not be accurate.
Corey didn't have that in the Zimmerman case did she? In addition the Seminole county DA had already passed on indicting Zimmerman.
Also, as you know, it can never be an official duty of a public official to commit a crime, so a prosecutor suborning perjury would be criminally an civilly liable.
In our department the situation was similar. We had a prosecutor on-call for felony arrests. We were not allowed to “charge” a suspect unless we conferred with the prosecutor as to the specifics of the crime, probable cause, and under which section of the ORC we would charge. But, as a police officer, I wrote the affidavit as the complaining witness.
It was a pain in the butt to get a prosecutor up in the middle of the night, but it certainly made for better criminal prosecutions. There was never any reason to amend a complaint when we got to preliminary. Much more efficient system.