{"id":2225,"date":"2016-06-29T14:06:41","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T14:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2016-07-03T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T15:14:08","slug":"immunity-of-office-allows-zeal-recklessness-to-go-unchecked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=2225","title":{"rendered":"Immunity of office allows zeal, recklessness to go unchecked \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ariel
Ariel Levy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

June 29, 2016<\/p>\n

\u201cCompensation is intended in part as a deterrent: a municipality that has to pay heavily for police or prosecutorial misconduct ought to be less likely to allow it to happen again. But it is taxpayers, not police or prosecutors, who bear the costs of litigation and compensation. Prosecutors enjoy almost total immunity in cases of misconduct, even if they deliberately withhold exculpatory evidence from a jury. A 2011 Supreme Court ruling also made it virtually impossible to sue a prosecutor\u2019s office for such violations….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 From \u201cThe Price of a Life<\/a>: What\u2019s the right way to compensate someone for decades of lost freedom?\u201d\u00a0by Ariel Levy in the New Yorker (April 13, 2015)<\/em><\/p>\n

To \u201cdeliberately withhold exculpatory evidence\u201d seems all too neatly illustrated in Bob Kelly\u2019s trial. Here\u2019s how the North Carolina Court of Appeals described the prosecution\u2019s actions:<\/p>\n

\u201cJudge L. Bradford Tillery, a pretrial Judge, directed the State to file and present for in camera review identifying information, medical and psychotherapeutic files and DSS files with respect to the \u2018indictment children\u2019\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn apparent compliance with Judge Tillery\u2019s order\u2026 the State turned over a box of files to the trial court, Judge (Marsh) McLelland presiding. The box contained, inter alia, complete medical notes and therapy notes on the 29 indictment children, 12 of whom testified at defendant\u2019s trial and 17 of whom did not\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter trial, defendant\u2019s appellate counsel went to the Office of the Clerk of Court for Pitt County to view the exhibits. He opened several boxes containing trial exhibits, none of which were sealed. One of the boxes contained 29 files labeled with the names of the indictment children…. Defendant argues that the files contained undisclosed information that would have been material to the defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

To wit, the withheld files were bulging with exculpation \u2013 conflicting claims, evidence of hysteria, eyewitness testimony that nothing happened.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors H.P. Williams Jr., Bill Hart and Nancy Lamb walked away rebuked by the Appeals Court but otherwise unpenalized. How differently might the Little Rascals case have unfolded had they known their recklessness wouldn\u2019t be shielded by prosecutorial immunity?<\/p>\n

\"LRDCC20\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 29, 2016 \u201cCompensation is intended in part as a deterrent: a municipality that has to pay heavily for police or prosecutorial misconduct ought to be less likely to allow it to happen again. But it is taxpayers, not police or prosecutors, who bear the costs of litigation and compensation. Prosecutors enjoy almost total immunity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2319,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}