Prosecutorial Immunity, or "FTP" Means Prosecutors Too [TEASER]

Hey everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue Projects.

On this week's episode of 5 to 4, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about prosecutorial immunity.

Prosecutorial immunity is the idea that you can't hold a prosecutor responsible for violating your civil rights, as long as they claim they were doing their job.

Whether it's withholding evidence that could exonerate you, or putting a witness that they know is lying on the stand, you can't sue a prosecutor for damages.

On top of that, prosecutorial immunity directly contravenes legislation passed by Congress.

As you'll hear, the doctrine was developed by judges and justices who have consistently ruled in favor of prosecutors when citizens have attempted to hold them accountable for their misdeeds.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have left our nation feeble and pathetic, like an Eagles fan complaining about the refs.

Got him.

I'm Peter.

You won, and now you got to rub it into.

I'm Peter, Victoria.

We're going to lose subscribers.

I'm here with Rhiannon.

Hi.

And Michael.

Hey, everybody.

Yeah, there were some people in the Slack last night saying if you do an anti-Philly metaphor, I'm unsubscribing.

And I said, unsubscribe now, then, bitch.

You might as well.

Oh, my God.

Just rolling in it.

Look, I went to Philly to watch the game, so I get to make fun of Philadelphians after winning.

I risked my life.

He's wearing a Kansas City t-shirt right now, by the way.

Absolutely.

As we speak, in the Zoom.

That's what I'm looking at.

Look, all respect for Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed, but the fucking referees ruined this game.

You know,

you can't grab a little jersey no more.

All of a sudden, that drawing's illegal.

Have a water ice to reassure yourselves.

I'm going to go down to Rita's, grab a water ice, maybe go to Wawa,

get a couple of hoagies, and go throw some bricks off the overpass.

That's good.

That's good.

That's good, Peter.

Today, we're talking about prosecutorial immunity.

And what that means is immunity from lawsuits for prosecutors who engage in a little bit of misconduct.

As you know, in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.

I've heard that somewhere.

Yeah.

Yeah, heard that on five to four when I made it up.

This is a story about how both of them are functionally immune from civil liability for their egregious misconduct.

Now, of course, this is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

And so you may not be surprised to hear that the Supreme Court is, in fact, the primary culprit of a lot of this.

Yep.

Now, I think to sort of understand

prosecutorial immunity, you need to understand

Section 1983.

Yeah.

Which we've talked about a bunch.

But Rhea, I'm going to let you give the relevant background here.

Yeah, and thanks for letting me.

You're welcome.

So

there is a law referred to as section 1983 that allows people to sue state officials, right?

That law originated in the Reconstruction era, actually 1871.

So if we're thinking about 1871, hmm.

Why would Congress think in 1871 that we needed a law allowing lawsuits against state officials?

Is there anything weird happening around?

Yeah.

Anything odd?

Something in the water.

It should be relatively obvious, right?

The law was designed to protect freed slaves against misconduct by, at that time, southern state officials.

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