Yes.
I posted the main case that starts this line in the comment to Chuck, but also see Rehberg v. Paulk, 132 S. Ct. 1497 (2012).
It's worse than you think.
In Rehberg, the accusation was the chief investigator for the DA's office simply presented made up testimony in front of the grand jury, knowing it was false, and the prosecutor knew it was false as well when questioning him/presenting it.
They did this 3 times, leading to indictments against folks that were, thankfully, later dismissed by judges.
It was also alleged that they both had conspired, pre-indictment, to make up and present this false testimony to the grand jury.
Holding: Both are entitled to absolute immunity.
This particular case seems more about grand juries, until you realize what was alleged and who was testifying.
I don't think it's particularly crazy. People focus on the cases where prosecutorial misconduct is protected by immunity, but ignore all the meritless suits and appeals prisoners file against anybody and everybody because they're in prison and have nothing else to do.
The justice system is a system. Designing systems is about making trade offs (something that should be obvious to an engineer). Any system of justice is going to put innocent people in jail, just like every drug is going to kill some people who would have otherwise survived. You have to deal with that fact the best you can to construct a workable system.
While true, it's only the specific question answered in that case because they already had immunity for things like perjury during trial itself through Briscoe v. Lahue (which applies to all witnesses), and other cases/situations.
Essentially, the rest of the conduct in Rehberg was already absolutely immune, this was the only question they could raise in a cert petition that the Supreme Court had a chance of caring enough to take.
I'm aware of the goal of justice systems, it was drilled into my head by Prof. Turley during law school. It's very hard to see how extending absolute immunity to prosecutors in most cases serves the system. It certainly doesn't cut down on nuisance lawsuits, since those get filed anyway by prisoners/etc. In any case, qualified immunity would still serve them in cases where they make bad decisions in good faith.
I wasn't implying you didn't understand the goals of the justice system, but as of late it seems that people forget we're looking at a piece of a larger system and ignore the trade-offs involved.
We do have multiple such methods. Just some of the procedural protections that exist for the accused:
1) Evidence can be suppressed for numerous reasons due to police misconduct or even honest mistakes.
2) Prosecutors have an ethical obligation not to bring bad cases. They can be disbarred if they do (e.g. like the prosecutor in the Duke basketball players case).
3) Prosecutors must get a grand jury indictment to bring a case.
4) The defense can motion to the judge to exclude evidence that would unfairly prejudice the defendant.
5) The jury must convict.
6) The defendant can appeal to the Court of Appeals (in the federal system) or the equivalent.
7) The defendant can appeal to the Supreme Court or the equivalent.
8) After losing all appeals, the defendant can file one or more habeas petitions to collaterally attack the judgment.
9) The defendant can petition to set aside the judgment based on new evidence that would have changed the jury's verdict.
I'm not well-versed in criminal law--there are a raft of other ways to attack convictions. And the convicted do use these avenues. A substantial fraction of the federal dockets are habeas petitions that have no merit but must be heard as part of the process of ensuring justice.
Before you add yet another "protection" by allowing the convicted to sue prosecutors, you have to think about what it would do to the system when all the actually guilty people started filing those suits. Does it really add to "justice" more than it burdens an already strained system?
Remember: prosecutorial immunity does not keep people in prison wrongly--it keeps those people from subsequently suing prosecutors for damages. Moreover, where do you set the bar for liability? If you set the bar too low, e.g. allowing suit when you simply think the prosecutor was too harsh (as in Swartz's case), then you basically make prosecution impossible. If you set the bar very high, you end up actually punishing a very small number of people (e.g. prosecutors who manufacture evidence to get a conviction), but you still create a huge number of lawsuits from those that are justly convicted.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but imagine we gave (2) more teeth and a greater frequency of enforcement. You don't have to put the ability to initiate such proceedings in the hands of defendants so long as the people who can do it are fully independent and properly funded. Which is not a solved problem, granted, but it could conceivably be worth investigating solutions to it.
And am I the only one who found it alarming the extent to which the plea bargaining system eviscerates almost the entirety of your list? If someone innocent pleads guilty against the expense of a trial or the risk of an order of magnitude or more higher penalties, how many of those safeguards disappear? Suppressing evidence becomes irrelevant, no jury, no appeals, what does that leave? The Grand Jury that would indict a ham sandwich?
I guess my impression was that you can not go to far down that road starting with only $60,000 in the bank unless you have a good lawyer take you on for free which is uncommon.
Meaning these options are not realistically open to large percentage of the population.
That much money would hire a competent criminal defense solo-practitioner for enough hours to work through many or most of those options. And for those who can't afford it, at the federal level public defenders are similarly credentialed as prosecutors and are by law paid the same (for obvious reasons). And there is always pro se representation with the help of legal aid clinics and prison law libraries. Prisoners with no money file huge numbers of appeals and petitions every year using these resources.
Now, Aaron Swartz did blow through a ton of money defending himself. But he also hired an entire team from one of the top white collar firms in the country. Moreover, his case was complex. He couldn't very well argue "the DNA says someone else did it!" He was a political activist engaging in civil disobedience. He was stuck arguing that while he did what the prosecution claims he did, what he did shouldn't be a crime. You can't really extrapolate from his case to argue that it's impossible to take advantage of the various procedural protections because of the expense of doing so.
The State has had incredibly broad latitude during Grand Jury proceedings since well before these cases. They've also had significantly less freedom to engage in shenanigans in other circumstances, AIUI. (I'll defer to someone with specific knowledge to the contrary, of course. I'm a technologist, not a lawyer.)
While bad, it isn't as bad as it sounds, because it was "only" in front of the grand jury for an indictment. It would have been even worse if they had done it in the actual criminal trial.
I think you are saying, they still would be immune if they did that in the criminal trial?
Regarding the Rehberg v. Paulk case - is that the end of the story? Did the chief investigator or prosecutor suffer any consequences for their actions? How could a prosecutor do that and not get disbarred?
Ken Hodges actually even ran for Attorney General of Georgia after doing this, and thankfully lost. Neither Hodges nor Burke were disbarred, nor is their any indication of any bar action at all. The investigator, Paulk, remains today as the chief investigator of the Dougherty County D.A.'s office. There is a documentary about much of this case, see www.DoNoHarmDoc.com . I am Charles Rehberg, the defendant in this case, and would be glad to answer any questions. I am at RehbergC at AOL dot com. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruling in my case opens the door for even more prosecutorial abuse by expanding their immunities.
Ken Hodges is now a partner in a law firm (Ashe, Rafuse & Hill, LLP). I can find nothing that says he was disciplined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hodges
I can't find out all the details of what happened to James Paulk, but if he was charged, it doesn't show up in the public records I have access to.
FWIW: Not all prosecutors are like this. I clerked for a former state's attorney who was a judge on the maryland court of special appeals. I have not the slightest doubt that he would have arrested, charged, and prosecuted all three of these men if something like this ever happened in his state.
It's wikipedia and this is HN. There have to be a few wiki admins around here who can defend it from reverts and procedural nonsense if someone slips in a few well-sourced edits.
It's worse than you think. In Rehberg, the accusation was the chief investigator for the DA's office simply presented made up testimony in front of the grand jury, knowing it was false, and the prosecutor knew it was false as well when questioning him/presenting it.
They did this 3 times, leading to indictments against folks that were, thankfully, later dismissed by judges.
It was also alleged that they both had conspired, pre-indictment, to make up and present this false testimony to the grand jury.
Holding: Both are entitled to absolute immunity.
This particular case seems more about grand juries, until you realize what was alleged and who was testifying.