Nathson Fields v. Lawrence Wharrie
2014 WL 243245, 740 F.3d 1107, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 1333 (2014)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
A prosecutor is not entitled to absolute immunity for fabricating evidence during the preliminary investigation of a crime before there is probable cause to arrest or charge a suspect, as this conduct is considered investigative rather than prosecutorial in nature.
Facts:
- In 1984, Taiman Hickman and Jerome Smith were murdered.
- In May 1985, before an arrest had been made, Illinois prosecutor David Wharrie allegedly coerced a witness, Anthony Sumner, to give false testimony implicating Nathson Fields in the murders.
- In June 1985, Nathson Fields was arrested and subsequently indicted for the murders.
- Wharrie was one of the prosecutors at Fields's trial, where the allegedly fabricated testimony was used against him.
- Fields was convicted of both murders and imprisoned.
- In 1998, while Fields was awaiting a retrial, prosecutor Lawrence Kelley allegedly procured false testimony from another witness.
- After spending 17 years in prison, Fields was acquitted in a retrial and later received a certificate of innocence.
Procedural Posture:
- Nathson Fields sued prosecutors Wharrie and Kelley in the U.S. District Court, alleging constitutional and state law violations.
- The district court dismissed some claims on absolute immunity grounds but allowed others to proceed.
- The prosecutors filed an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
- In the first appeal, the Seventh Circuit ruled the prosecutors had absolute immunity for the remaining federal claims and ordered their dismissal.
- On remand to the district court, the judge granted Fields's motion to reconsider the dismissal in light of an intervening Seventh Circuit decision, Whitlock v. Brueggemann.
- The district court reinstated the federal claim against Wharrie for his alleged evidence fabrication in 1985 and declined to dismiss claims against Kelley.
- Wharrie and Kelley then filed this second interlocutory appeal to the Seventh Circuit, challenging the district court's denial of absolute immunity.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a prosecutor have absolute immunity from a civil suit for damages when they fabricate evidence against a suspect during an investigation before the suspect is formally charged, and that fabricated evidence is later used to obtain a wrongful conviction?
Opinions:
Majority - Posner, Circuit Judge.
No, a prosecutor does not have absolute immunity for fabricating evidence before a suspect is formally charged. Absolute immunity shields a prosecutor's actions that are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process, not their conduct as an investigator. When a prosecutor fabricates evidence before there is probable cause, they are acting as an investigator, a role that is only protected by qualified immunity. The prosecutor cannot retroactively immunize this non-immune investigative work simply by ensuring the fabricated evidence is later used at trial, a phase where their conduct would be absolutely immune. To hold otherwise would create a 'breathtaking injustice' and give prosecutors a license to engage in lawless conduct by framing innocent citizens. The wrongful act is the fabrication during the investigative phase, and the prosecutor who created the defect is responsible for the foreseeable injury it later causes, such as a wrongful conviction. However, conduct that occurs after the prosecution has begun, such as Kelley's alleged procurement of false testimony in 1998 for the retrial, is part of the judicial process and is protected by absolute immunity.
Concurring-in-part-and-dissenting-in-part - Sykes, Circuit Judge,
Yes, while the prosecutor does not have absolute immunity for the pre-charge conduct, they should be protected by qualified immunity. The majority opinion creates an irreconcilable conflict with this court's prior precedent in Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, which held that fabricating evidence during an investigation does not, by itself, violate a suspect's clearly established constitutional rights. The constitutional violation is the use of fabricated evidence at trial, which violates the due process right to a fair trial. However, a prosecutor's actions at trial are quintessentially prosecutorial and are protected by absolute immunity. The majority improperly uses common-law causation principles to connect the non-actionable, pre-charge investigative conduct to the immunized trial conduct in order to create a constitutional tort where one does not exist. While I concur that Kelley's post-indictment conduct is absolutely immune, I dissent from the holding that Wharrie can be sued for his pre-indictment investigative conduct.
Analysis:
This decision solidifies a critical limitation on the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity, distinguishing between a prosecutor's role as an advocate and their role as an investigator. By holding that fabricating evidence before formal charges are filed is not a protected prosecutorial function, the court prevents prosecutors from using absolute immunity as a shield for misconduct committed during the earliest stages of a case. This ruling provides a potential avenue for relief for wrongfully convicted individuals and highlights the conflict in precedent between focusing on the act of fabrication itself versus the subsequent use of that evidence at trial. The sharp dissent indicates that this is a contentious area of law, pitting the need to remedy egregious misconduct against the long-standing policy of shielding prosecutors from retaliatory lawsuits.
