United States Third Circuit

Summary judgment for defendants in plaintiff's civil rights action arising out his wrongful prosecution and imprisonment for 22 years for crimes that he did not commit is reversed and remanded, where the district court erred in finding that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because: 1) a police officer who fabricates evidence against a criminal defendant to obtain his conviction violates the defendant's constitutional right to due process of law; 2) the prosecutor instrumental in the initiation of the criminal case against plaintiff acknowledged that the false confession that defendants claimed they obtained from plaintiff contributed to the prosecutor's decision to charge plaintiff, and thus the decision to prosecute is not an intervening act absolving defendants from liability; and 3) the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find that defendants, who had interrogated plaintiff for many hours, had coerced him into signing the false confession.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/24/2014
• Published 04/24/2014

Judges

• GREENBERG

Court

• United States Third Circuit

Counsel