Absolute prosecutorial immunity in criminal proceedings

Absolute prosecutorial immunity in criminal proceedings, as described in the book, can shield prosecutors from civil liability for misconduct in a criminal case even when they intentionally and illegally withhold evidence of innocence. Its force becomes clearest in the contrast between a finding of serious wrongdoing and the inability of the person harmed to obtain compensation from the prosecutor responsible.

Scope and operation

The account distinguishes prosecutors’ and judges’ protections from those afforded to law-enforcement officers: immunity from civil liability for prosecutors and judges is described as even greater. In practice, this made a civil claim against Ted Pearson unlikely to succeed, although he had illegally withheld evidence that directly resulted in Walter McMillian’s wrongful conviction. The doctrine thus separated proof of misconduct from the possibility of holding its alleged author financially accountable.

The rule is presented in the context of criminal proceedings and civil suits seeking redress for their consequences. The book does not set out a detailed test defining which prosecutorial acts qualify for protection; its emphasis is on the breadth and practical effect of the immunity in cases involving grave misconduct.

John Thompson and the Supreme Court ruling

In 2011, the United States Supreme Court overturned a $14 million jury award to John Thompson, who had spent fourteen years in prison for a crime he had not committed. A month before his scheduled execution, a crime-lab report contradicting the State’s case in a robbery-murder was uncovered. State courts overturned Thompson’s conviction and death sentence, and he was later acquitted and released. He then sued, and a New Orleans jury found that District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. had illegally suppressed evidence of Thompson’s innocence and allowed him to remain imprisoned.

The Supreme Court reversed that award in a divided 5–4 decision. As the book explains the ruling, a prosecutor could not be held liable for misconduct in a criminal case even when he had intentionally and illegally withheld evidence of innocence. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent, and the decision drew strong criticism from scholars and Court observers. Thompson received no money from the jury’s award.

Application to Walter McMillian’s case

The same protection constrained the civil suit brought after Walter McMillian’s wrongful conviction and death sentence. The legal team sued nearly a dozen state and local officials and agencies, but the defendants claimed immunity. Because Pearson had been the prosecutor most responsible for the wrongful prosecution and conviction, the prospect that immunity would prevent recovery against him was especially difficult to reconcile with the evidence of his role.

After a year of depositions, hearings, and pretrial litigation, the team reached a settlement with most defendants for a few hundred thousand dollars. Pearson’s alleged misconduct and the settlement with other parties did not erase the central problem: the people who had suffered the consequences of a wrongful prosecution faced legal barriers to obtaining redress from the prosecutor responsible. The separate claim against Monroe County concerned Sheriff Tate’s conduct and proceeded to the Supreme Court; it was a distinct dispute, not the prosecutor-immunity question.

Consequences and significance

The Thompson ruling gives the doctrine its starkest consequence in the book: even a jury’s finding that a prosecutor illegally suppressed evidence could not secure an award once the Supreme Court applied prosecutorial immunity. In McMillian’s case, the doctrine likewise narrowed the available routes to accountability despite acknowledgment that evidence had been unlawfully withheld and had contributed directly to a wrongful conviction.

The account treats this protection as part of a broader imbalance in criminal justice: severe consequences can fall on an innocent person while the official whose misconduct helped produce them remains insulated from civil liability. The tension is not between wrongdoing and its absence, but between recognizing wrongdoing and providing a remedy for it.