Tuesday, October 20, 2015

7th and 2nd Circuit now approved exceptions to prosecutorial immunity

I wrote recently in this blog about the recent decision (September 2015) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that carved out an exception to prosecutorial immunity in preparing false evidence for presentation to the grand jury in prosecutor's investigative capacity.

I recently found another, earlier, case from the 7th Circuit (of January 2014) where the court similarly made an exception to prosecutorial immunity when false evidence was prepared in the prosecutor's investigative capacity.

The 7th Circuit court rejected the prosecutor's claim that, notwithstanding that the false evidence was prepared during the investigative stage, the injury occurred during the trial when the false evidence was introduced and where the prosecutor was covered by absolute prosecutorial immunity.

Such a claim is obviously completely immoral - not that the prosecutor advancing it cared a bit about immorality or dishonesty rather than his liability.

The court very logically reasoned that, for example, in products liability case, the injury may occur when a pipe bursts, but the future injury is put into motion when the defect is created.

So far, 2nd and 7th Circuit started to chip away at prosecutorial immunity, even though by small pieces.

I wonder when it will occur to federal courts (where majority of judges are former prosecutors who, of course, feel for the fate of their brethren appearing in front of them as defendants in civil rights actions, see for example, my previous blog post) that the concept of absolute prosecutorial immunity is not only immoral, but has nothing to do with Civil Rights Act or the U.S. Constitution that is enforced by private actors - victims of prosecutorial misconduct - through the Civil Rights Act.


No comments:

Post a Comment