In the Duke lacrosse case, on the Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution issue, police officers who told the prosecutor that the case was weak and presented him what exculpatory evidence they had were entitled to qualified immunity. Evans v. Chalmers, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 25660 (4th Cir. December 17, 2012):
The Evans plaintiffs do not allege that Officers Gottlieb and Himan misled or misinformed Nifong. Indeed, the Evans plaintiffs expressly allege that, from the outset, the officers candidly briefed Nifong as to the startling weaknesses in the case by "detail[ing] the extraordinary evidence of innocence and the fatal defects in Mangum's claims" and "convey[ing] to Nifong that Mangum was not credible." The Evans plaintiffs nonetheless insist that the officers remain liable because they "misrepresented, withheld, or falsified evidence" that ultimately influenced the grand jury. This argument fails because acts of either the prosecutor or the grand jury may break the causal chain. Cf. Cuadra, 626 F.3d at 813; Barts, 865 F.2d at 1195. In other words, if the independent act of a prosecutor breaks the causal chain, the fact that the prosecutor misled the grand jury does not render police officers liable.
Alternatively, the Evans plaintiffs maintain that Officers Gottlieb and Himan conspired with Nifong to fabricate and conceal evidence from the grand jury and thus somehow unduly pressured Nifong to seek the indictment. The allegations in their complaint significantly undercut this argument. For the Evans plaintiffs ground their entire case on allegations that Nifong desired to exploit the "high-profile, racially-charged rape allegation for his personal political gain." They further allege that from his very first meeting with the officers, Nifong noted the lack of exculpatory evidence: "we're f*cked." Tellingly, the Evans plaintiffs do not assert that Officers Gottlieb and Himan responded by pressuring Nifong to pursue the case. Rather, they allege that the officers continued the investigation at Nifong's instruction, and that, when Nifong sought to indict the Evans plaintiffs, Officer Himan frankly responded, "With what?" No matter how generously read, these allegations do not allege that Officers Gottlieb and Himan pressured Nifong to seek an indictment.
Moreover, it seems contrary to the very purpose of qualified immunity to extend personal liability to police officers who have assertedly conspired with, but neither misled nor unduly pressured, an independent prosecutor. Police officers and prosecutors often work together to establish probable cause and seek indictments; such collaboration could always be characterized as a "conspiracy." Allowing § 1983 claims against police officers to proceed on allegations of such a "conspiracy" would in virtually every case render the officers' qualified immunity from suit "effectively lost," Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 526, and make discovery the rule, rather than the exception, see Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639-40 & n.2 (1987).
Thus, we hold today that an alleged officer-prosecutor conspiracy does not alter the rule that a prosecutor's independent decision to seek an indictment breaks the causal chain unless the officer has misled or unduly pressured the prosecutor. Because the Evans plaintiffs do not allege that Officers Gottlieb and Himan either misled or pressured Nifong to seek their indictments, we reverse the district court's denial of the officers' motions to dismiss the Evans plaintiffs' § 1983 malicious prosecution claims against them.
This is just the Fourth Amendment issue. This clearly is the correct result. The officers did all they could do, so why should they be held liable when the idiot prosecutor filed charges? It was clear to me that they didn't want him to file, and they were just presenting what they had after gathering evidence of innocence, too.
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