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Another area in which Nifong is civilly liable?
Topic Started: Oct 21 2010, 07:37 PM (179 Views)
Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://justicedenied.org/issue/issue_35/jd_issue_35.pdf

The federal Ninth Circuit ruled in Goldstein v. City of Long Beach,
No. 06-55537 (9th Cir. 03/28/2007), that prosecutors can be held
civilly liable for damages
related to their failure to perform constitutionally
required administrative obligations under Giglio v. United
States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972). Thomas Goldstein was convicted of
murder in 1980 based on the testimony of a jailhouse informant.
Goldstein’s trial lawyer wasn’t provided with the impeachment evidence
that the informant had an extensive history of exchanging
prosecution favorable testimony for a sentence reduction.


(excerpt from the opinion) :

Several years prior to
Goldstein’s arrest and conviction,
the Supreme Court explained that
prosecutors’ offices have a constitutional
obligation to establish “procedures and regulations
. . .
to insure communication of all
relevant information on each case to every lawyer
who deals with it.” Giglio, 405
U.S. at 154.

Thus, Goldstein alleges
that Van De Kamp and
Livesay are liable under § 1983
because, as administrators of the
Los Angeles County District
Attorney’s Office, they violated
his constitutional rights by purposefully
or with deliberate indifference
failing to create a system
that would satisfy this obligation.


Goldstein further alleges that Van
De Kamp and Livesay violated
his constitutional rights by failing
to adequately train and supervise
deputy district attorneys
to ensure
that they shared information regarding
jailhouse informants

with their colleagues.


If a DA can be liable for failing to properly train his staff
as to the constitutional safeguards required for an accused,

then how about Nifong's apparent failure to adequately train Cline and Saacks
so that they recognized the unconstitutional nature of the NTO?

Since they were acting on their own, and without input from Nifong (according
to his account); and since he was responsible for their supervision,
isn't he therefore civilly liable for their conduct (with no immunity,
as that was an administrative duty, and not something he performed
in his role as prosecutor of a specific case)?



Quote:
 
[21] Van De Kamp and Livesay
sought dismissal of the claims
against them, under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6),
based on an assertion of absolute
prosecutorial immunity. The district
court denied their motion on
March 8, 2006, finding that Van
De Kamp and Livesay’s alleged
conduct was administrative rather
than prosecutorial and, therefore,
not entitled to the protections of
absolute immunity. …

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