TheAgitator.com
Wow.
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010Powattattamie gets settled before the U.S. Supreme Court can issue a decision.
Not really sure what to make of this. I agree with Jacob Sullum that it suggests the defendants were worried. You have to wonder if they were pressured from other prosecutor groups and government agencies to avoid setting a precedent.
So on we go, then. Could be another 10 years before a case like this brings even the slightest bit of accountability to rogue prosecutors.
Wow is right. While this moots any decision from SCOTUS, it does not stop individual justices from airing their personal thoughts in a general sense. I hope we can hear from them.
Good news for the plaintiffs, but also good news generally, in that it suggests that the winds are blowing the right way.
I suppose I should walk a mile in plaintiffs’ shoes, but, boy oh boy, it’s every man for himself out there.
Fuck all. Business as usual.
No justice system with any integrity would shield prosecutors and cops who intentionally fabricate evidence like was done in this case. Not only that, but any organization of any kind that valued its own reputation and credibility would expel and prosecute those who bring such humiliating disgrace on their profession and department.
The fact that nothing usually happens in cases like this says a lot about the justice system. It’s not just a few bad apples. It’s rotten through and through.
“While this moots any decision from SCOTUS, it does not stop individual justices from airing their personal thoughts in a general sense.”
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WTF? You mean like when the justices sit around and gab to reporters and predict how they would vote on certain issues?
I’m having a bit of a hard time figuring out how they can settle if it has already gotten to the supreme court. Aren’t they just ruling on another lower courts verdict?
Something like “We can’t have prosecutors held accountable for railroading innocents and displaying a complete disregard for the law. Take one for the home team”?
It frustrates me that the Supreme Court allows any of its cases to be dismissed for mootness. It seems to me that if the issue were important enough for the Supreme Court to agree to hear it, then it is important enough to be an exception to the mootness doctrine and an opinion should still issue. Instead, we get 9 relieved old people who don’t have to piss anyone off with their decision.
I’d like to thank the taxpayers of Pottawattamie County for their generosity. Not only did they pay for the prosecution (and defense?) 30 years ago, and for 25 years of incarceration, and for the defense of the wrongful prosecution, but they’re also paying $12M to ensure they have the opportunity to do it all over again.
This New Professionalism stuff is expensive, and I salute the taxpayers for funding it.
This was a total cower move by the muni. They were poised to loose big and with extremely impactful facts found.
John Elwood , over at the volokh conspiracy argues that a similar controvery is often left in cert limbo for this very reason.
It’s an interesting take:
http://volokh.com/2010/01/05/looking-forward-after-pottawattamie-county/
And hopefully to play out as predicted. Boy, criminal liability being retroactively applied to state actors, acting under color of authority to deprive of life and/or liberty would have been an extremely satisfying ruling.
I’ve digested elsewhere that Sotomayor could have been a real spoiler to justice, propping up her life’s profession from scrutiny.
-bear
@Stephen & Susan K: The Court does not “allow” its cases to be mooted. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Under the U.S. Constitution, the the federal courts are empowered to decide cases and controversies. Art. III, § 2.
If the parties settle, then there is no longer a “controversy.” Once the controversy is settled, the courts lose jurisdiction (there are narrow exceptions, none of which probably apply here).
Courts cannot compel litigants to keep fighting if they have reached a settlement among themselves, and federal court policy in particular favors settlement.
t1: “WTF? You mean like when the justices sit around and gab to reporters and predict how they would vote on certain issues?”
No, but justices can write and speak about legal issues, and this gives insight into their thinking. Scalia is a particularly frequent speaker.
@John Jenkins,
I think that it’s possible to read Stephen & Susan K’s discussion of mooting much more charitably than you did above.
There is still a controversy, of a type: clearly we do not clearly know the law in this or many other mooted disputes, since it was presumably unclear enough or conflicted enough that the US Supreme Court took an interest. Perhaps our society is better served if these questions are answered, saving future litigants immense costs in appeals and giving future actors a more solid knowledge of the law.
I concur that it’s probably unwise or impossible to compel litigants who have settled to continue though. One can imagine ways around that.
I think it is frustrating that in this case the law will remain unsettled.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
From volokh.com: tantalising signs that there might be more actions coming from the court
Looking Forward After Pottawattamie County
John Elwood • January 5, 2010 10:34 am
Yesterday the Supreme Court granted petitioners’ motion to dismiss the writ of certiorari pursuant to Rule 46 in the spellcheck-challenging Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, 08–1065, which involved whether prosecutors who try a case are entitled to immunity when sued for allegedly procuring before trial false evidence to frame a criminal defendant. The motion, which petitioners filed December 30, and to which respondents evidently consented yesterday, was precipitated by a settlement in which the County and its insurers reportedly paid plaintiffs Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee $12 million. Harrington, who spent nearly 26 years behind bars, will get a little over $7 million, and McGhee (whose case may be marginally weaker because I seem to recall he pleaded guilty again after his first conviction was overturned) just under $5 million.
While the settlement ends this case, this is not the last we’ve seen of this issue. Any other case which credibly presents the same issue will have an enhanced chance of being granted, because the Court has a demonstrated interest in the issue. The facts of Pottawattamie County were particularly sympathetic, which made it more cert-friendly than the run-of-the-mine case; but at this point, I think the Court is interested in the issue and won’t need outrageous facts to grant.
When the Court is considering a case, it typically “holds” other cases that present the same question pending the case’s resolution; when a case is dismissed for whatever reason after argument, the Court not infrequently chooses another case from among those being held and uses it as a vehicle for resolving the question. The Court does not state on the docket that a case is being “held”; instead, you typically see that a case has been assigned to a specific conference for consideration, and then there simply are no further docket entries. Thus, it is not particularly easy to find which cases on the Court’s docket are being held unless you happen to be watching a case as it moves through the system (or unless the government is a party to the case; its hold recommendations in non-IFP cases, which the Court typically follows, are available on the SG’s Office website).
While I have compiled a list of cases I suspect the Court is holding pending resolution of cases on its merits docket, I am not aware of any cases being held for Pottawattamie County. Nor am I aware of any pending cases out there that present the same question. If you know of any, let me know in the comments. It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
It’s not about compelling the litigants to continue fighting. It’s about answering a question of profound importance – hence the exceptions that have been carved out, such as voluntary cessation or “evading review”.
Unfortunately, there isn’t anyone to argue it fits into any of the exceptions and the court clearly isn’t interested in answering the question without anyone forcing it.
Maybe it’s a blessing, but probably not.
>So on we go, then. Could be another 10 years before a case like this brings even the slightest bit of accountability to rogue prosecutors.
Rogue?
Not to be the turd in the punchbowl here, Radley, but as much as I like and respect your work the constant repetition of the “a few bad apples” mantra is starting to grate. I get that you’re trying to make your case more palatable, that you’re trying to talk to more than just the radicals, but come on. Trumped up charges, shady evidence, withholding of exculpatory evidence, prosecution of know innocents, even manufacturing evidence isn’t even uncommon. Powattattamie might have been an especially egregious case, but it was hardly unusual even as it stood and if you consider the broader outlook it suggests you end up with business as usual in the courts in this country. We are no more talking about a few rogue prosecutors in an otherwise clean system than we are a few dirty cops in most police misconduct cases.
As long as we continue to support what we know to be a lie the worst parts of the system will continue to flourish.
Susan K:
it might be a question of profound importance, but courts are only allowed to resolve ACTUAL disputes. If it has settled, there is not dispute.
I don’t blame the plaintiffs for taking the money and running…god knows they, like Andy Dufresne, have crawled through a river of shit. But damn, I would have liked to have heard the opinion.
William is right. Carrying forward the “bad apple” argument is like perpetuating the untruth that Obama is allowing himself to be “bullied” into more war by the Pentagon, when in fact he promised more war during the campaign.
What prosecutor ever got a bonus for successfully prosecuting a guilty person instead of an innocent one? They win cred for piling up convictions. They don’t win extra rewards if they only convict the guilty.
Is there any rational prospect that prosecutors will be made accountable for fabricating evidence and other misdeeds to rack up their guilty-verdict scores at the expense of the innocent? Isn’t it much more likely that, if the courts do find any accountability, next day Congress will pass a law (called something like the Preserving the Right to Defend America from Crime Act) to render the prosecutors even more immune?
[...] Radley Balko [...]
Actually I am glad it settled. I could see Thomas, Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Kennedy and yes probably Sotomayor, taking the prosecutor’s side.