Pottawattamie County v. McGhee

The Supreme Court has agreed to clarify an appeals court split on how immunity applies to prosecutors’ duties throughout a case.

In 1978, Terry J. Harrington and Curtis W. McGhee Jr. were tried and convicted for the murder of an auto dealership security guard in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Iowa Supreme Court vacated Harrington’s conviction in 2003, based on a finding that petitioners had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence of an alternative suspect.

Following that decision, McGhee, whose conviction was based on essentially the same facts and evidence, entered a plea to second-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of time served. Harrington was not retried.

In 2005, Harrington and McGhee filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, alleging Pottawattamie County, Iowa (County) and former county attorneys Joseph Hrvol and David Richter had coerced false witness testimony during the criminal investigation; subjected them to false arrest; introduced false testimony at trial and withheld exculpatory evidence.

In February 2007, the district court dismissed claims that were based on withholding of exculpatory evidence. However, the district court denied immunity to the extent that claims arose from allegations that they had coerced false testimony from witnesses that was later introduced at trial.

The district court held that such allegations were “sufficient to state a substantive due process claim” and that a constitutional right against such conduct by a prosecutor was “clearly established.”

In November 2008, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s analysis, holding that a prosecutor’s procurement of false testimony “violates a [criminal defendant’s] substantive due process rights.”

Attorneys for Pottawattamie County and the former prosecutors asked the Supreme Court to review the case, pointing to a split among the lower circuits on the topic.

On April 20, the justices accepted the case for review. They will hear oral arguments during the fall term beginning Oct. 5.

Question Presented: Whether a prosecutor may be subjected to a civil trial and potential damages for a wrongful conviction and incarceration where the prosecutor allegedly violated a criminal defendant’s “substantive due process” rights by procuring false testimony during the criminal investigation, and then introduced that same testimony against the criminal defendant at trial.