Duke Lacrosse and Civil Rights Suits

I've read the 155 page complaint that the Duke Lacrosse players filed against the City of Durham, North Carolina, and a group of law enforcement-related defendants. I would venture to guess that a great number of folks are anticipating a large recovery for these young men, but any lawyer that defends civil rights cases would immediately recognize some significang legal hurdles in the case.

First, prosecutors in America enjoy a type of immunity from suit and liability that is as broad an immunity that exists in the law. They cannot be held responsible for conduct, no matter how egregiously wrong, that is part of their prosecutorial function. Withholding evidence, lying about evidence, believing patently unbelievable evidence, and refusing to fairily consider defense evidence is not the work of a good prosecutor, but it is fairly within the job description of prosecutors. Nifong probably walks liability early in the case.

Even if policement and investigators aided and abetted Nifong's poorly conceived prosecution, it is unclear whether their conduct is in violation of clearly established law. If it's not, then all the other cops and investigators have qualified immunity - which means that they don't have to pay.

The City doesn't have to shoulder the responsibility for any of the defendants unless it can be shown that the City's official policies were to treat criminal suspects as Nifong and his crowd did.

All of these legal hurdles sound very prudent when applied to the run of the mill criminal who is arrested and mistreated by the cops. They are a little harder to swallow when the wrongful conduct is so wrong, so public, and so unnecessary. That's the nasty underbelly of immunity principles in the law.