Supreme Court to Decide if Prosecutors Are Held Responsible for Fabrication

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, backing local Iowa prosecutors in the case, urged the...

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, backing local Iowa prosecutors in the case, urged the justices to rule that prosecutors' immunity for actions related to their trial work also covers any investigatory misconduct that led to charges in the first place.

(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Supreme Court justices struggled Wednesday with whether prosecutors, who usually are shielded from civil rights lawsuits, can be held responsible for framing defendants with false testimony and fabricated evidence.

Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, backing local Iowa prosecutors in the case, urged the justices to rule that prosecutors' immunity for actions related to their trial work also covers any investigatory misconduct that led to charges in the first place.

Katyal said the court should not focus on officials who abuse their authority but rather the overriding goals of the justice system. "(T)his court's decisions have said … that absolute immunity doesn't exist to protect bad apples," he insisted. "It reflects a larger interest in protecting judicial information coming into the judicial process. If prosecutors have to worry at trial that every act they undertake will somehow open up the door to liability, they will flinch in the performance of their duties."

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Two Pottawattamie County, Iowa, prosecutors allegedly obtained false testimony from a man who became the key witness against Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington in the 1977 shotgun murder of an auto dealership security guard in Council Bluffs. They were sentenced to life in prison.

Two decades later, after a friend of Harrington's had sought the police record, it emerged that prosecutors Joseph Hrvol and David Richter had failed to turn over evidence about a leading suspect in the murder and allegedly coached the key witness in his tale against McGhee and Harrington. The Iowa Supreme Court threw out Harrington's conviction in 2003, based on Hrvol's and Richter's failure to disclose the evidence about the other suspect. McGhee's sentence was later voided, too. In 2005, the men sued Hrvol and Richter under federal civil rights law, alleging they violated their rights to due process of law by coercing the false testimony to frame them..

The case, which could affect prosecutors' methods in cases nationwide, is being closely watched by defendants' rights and civil liberties groups, such as the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which raise concerns in a "friend of the court" brief about "overzealous and dishonest" prosecutors.