A prosecutor allegedly asked a witness to destroy evidence. He cannot be prosecuted for this.

Consider the following scenario: You are imprisoned for two years while awaiting trial for murder. You risk the death penalty. You have cancer that was in remission until you were incarcerated without proper treatment or monitoring. And it turns out that you were charged based on a false witness statement, a fact that the local prosecutor allegedly encouraged the destruction of evidence to obscure.

Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse because these government employees are entitled to absolute immunity.

This is unfortunately not a hypothesis. It describes the case of Nickie Miller, a Kentucky man who was implicated in a bizarre murder plot by a woman who was offered a deal by the government to avoid prison. That witness, Natasha Martin, almost immediately sought to retract her testimony. Law enforcement would not accept this. She testified before a grand jury, then tried to recant again, writing in letters from prison that her statement was a response to “undisclosed coercive interrogation techniques, threats, and promises of consideration.”

When Miller’s defense team learned of the letters, they obtained a court order regarding them. Martin asked Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Keith Craycraft how she should comply, to which he reportedly responded that she should destroy the correspondence. She did it. (Craycraft acknowledges speaking with Martin by telephone after the court order, but denies telling him to destroy the evidence.)

The state ultimately dropped the charges against Miller. His two years in prison, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said Miller’s cancer was in remission but returned after the state locked him up because he didn’t could not access his medication.

After his release, Miller sued Craycraft. The district court concluded that Craycraft was entitled to absolute immunity. The United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit later noted that Craycraft’s alleged chicanery was “difficult to justify and apparently unbecoming of an official charged with enforcing the criminal law.” But this court went ahead and still ratified the grant of absolute immunity – a testament to the malfeasance permitted by the doctrine.

At the heart of the decision, and decisions like it, is Imbler v. Pachtman (1976), the precedent in which the Supreme Court created the doctrine of absolute immunity from suit. The Court ruled that a man who had spent years in prison for murder could not sue a prosecutor who hid evidence that ultimately exonerated him.

The only way for plaintiffs to circumvent this doctrine is to prove that a prosecutor committed misconduct outside the scope of his or her duties as a prosecutor. It’s a difficult task. Priscilla Lefebure, a Louisiana woman, sued local prosecutor Samuel C. D’Aquilla after he sabotaged her rape case against colleague Barrett Boeker, then a deputy warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Rather than present to the grand jury the results of a medical examination that revealed bruising, redness and irritation on Lefebure’s legs, arms and collar, D’Aquilla offered a police report with his own handwritten notes , aiming to highlight the discrepancies in its history. . He also refused to call as witnesses the two investigators assigned to the case, the nurse who administered Lefebure’s rape kit or the coroner who preserved it. He even refused to meet or speak with Lefebure, telling local media that it made him “uncomfortable.”

Judge Shelly D. Dick of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana concluded that some of D’Aquilla’s actions were more accurately classified as “investigative functions” as opposed to prosecutorial functions, such that the Absolute immunity did not apply. This unusual victory was short-lived. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit later overturned Dick’s decision, finding that Lefebure lacked standing. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case.

Miller’s case met a similar end. “Craycraft’s alleged misconduct in advising a witness to destroy evidence to thwart a court order is stunning,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. “If this is what absolute immunity from prosecution protects, the Court may need to step in to ensure that the doctrine does not exceed its ‘fairly moderate’ limits.” The Court rejected his request.

It is possible that Craycraft was vindicated by a jury. However, Miller would never get the chance to ask one, as he died during the course of litigation trying to assert his rights against prosecutorial misconduct.

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