considering whether prosecutors should have absolute immunity from
prosecution according to an interesting article in today's Christian Science
Monitor.The two innocent men, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, had spent
nearly 26 years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit.
Once the truth was discovered and they were released,
they sued the prosecutors in Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
The investigation into their claim of innocence revealed that
prosecutors had helped to gather and present false testimony
that resulted in their life without parole sentences.
Qualified immunity that offers prosecutors protection from most lawsuits
except when they have violated a clearly established constitutional right
is the doctrine that those involved in criminal defense and the innocence
project were urging the court to follow.
Prosecutors wanted absolute immunity. Prosecutors are normally given
absolute immunity for actions taken during a trial. But the many recent
revelations about prosecutorial misconduct should require the judicial
system to back qualified immunity. No one in a democracy should ever
be allowed to violate another's constitutional rights with total protection.
A web search using prosecutorial misconduct reveals literally thousands
of articles of such instances. Many, if not most, of the cases involve
poor defendants and often members of a minority. There is a well
written book called Arbitrary Justice about the frequency of abuse
that is taking place. I wrote a review of this book for the Law and Courts
section of the Political Science Association Book Reviews; you can read it here
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