Do Police Have A Right To Frame Suspects?

In 1988, Byron Halsey was tried for the sexual assault and murder of his girlfriend’s two children. Based largely on a confession he gave to police, he was convicted of two counts of felony murder and one count of sexual assault. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but instead Halsey was sentenced to two life sentences for the murders and an additional 20 years for the sexual assault.

The only problem is that Halsey was innocent. Beginning in 1993, Halsey petitioned to have DNA tests performed on semen and cigarette butts found at the crime scene. His requests were repeatedly denied until New Jersey passed a law specifically granting access to such post-conviction tests.

When the crime scene evidence was finally tested in 2006, Halsey was exonerated. The DNA belonged to another man who police had initially considered as a suspect, but later cleared after they zeroed in on Halsey.

But there’s just one problem–that confession. Police interrogated Halsey for hours and he finally signed a written version of his confession because he said he feared for his life. Halsey has serious cognitive impairments and only reads at a third grade level, so his ability to read the confession was limited.

The confession itself, however, was compelling because it contained details about the crime that only the person who actually committed it could have known. Since Halsey had nothing to do with the crime how did those details find their way into the written confession?

That’s right–the police who interrogated Halsey inserted details of the crime that Halsey was unaware of into his written confession to make their case stronger.

Halsey sued the police and prosecutor for malicious prosecution and fabricating evidence against him. A federal judge initially dismissed the lawsuit on the bizarre claim that if the defendant was unable to prove that he was maliciously prosecuted, that the fact that police fabricated evidence would not be actionable. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected this in no uncertain terms,

We emphatically reject the notion that due process of law permits the police to frame suspects. Indeed, we think it self-evident that “a police officer’s fabrication and forwarding to prosecutors of known false evidence works an unacceptable ‘corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process.’” Id. (quoting, inter alia, United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 104, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2397 (1976)). Requiring that a plaintiff join a fabrication claim with a malicious prosecution claim would come close to making “a mockery of the notion that Americans enjoy the protection of due process of the law and fundamental justice.” Ricciuti v. N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 124 F.3d 123, 130 (2d Cir. 1997).

 

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