Falsely Imprisoned Individuals Have Right to Sue Cops for Withholding Exculpatory Evidence

Corrupt L.A. police officers must now contend with being civilly sued for false accusations. Often the Los Angels District Attorneyinvestigated dirty officers. However, the Officeonly files criminal charges when there is evidence to prove the misconduct beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil suit has a lower proof standard and is another avenue for the falsely accused to hold corrupt officers responsible.

Recently the 9th Circuit Court ofAppeal held thattwo men exonerated of murder after 13 years in prison can proceed with a civil rights action alleging two San Francisco Police Department homicide inspectors withheld exculpatory evidence and manufactured and presented perjured testimony. Explaining that the officers violated a duty to tell prosecutors about a witness statement incriminating others in the murder, as well as another individuals taped confession to the crime, the Court of Appeal rejected the officers' claim that they are ummune from being sued.

John Tennison and Antoine Sodapop Goff were convicted of the August 1989 murder of Roderick Shannon, 18. Prosecutors said Goff, aided by Tennison, shot and killed the victim in retaliation for an earlier drive-by shooting that was part of an ongoing battle between gangs from the Sunnydale section of San Francisco, where Shannon lived, and the Hunters Point area. The prosecution charged that Tennison, Goff and others chased Shannon and caught him as he tried to climb a fence, then pulled him back into a parking lot where Tennison held him while Goff killed him with a blast from a shotgun.

Two girlsMasina Fauolo, 11, and friend Pauline Maluina, 14identified Tennison at trial, saying they had followed the chase because one of them was a friend of Shannon. Both men were convicted of first degree murder. Tennison later moved for a new trial on the ground that another man, Lovinsky Ricard, had confessed to being the shooter and had said that Tennison was not present. The motion was denied on the ground that the confession was unreliable and that Ricard who recanted his statement after the motion for new trial was deniedcould have been called as a witness at trial.

However, in 2003 Wilken overturned the conviction on the ground that prosecutors had suppressed Brady material, including evidence that officers had received money to distribute to witnesses, but could not explain who had gotten it, and that one of the identification witnesses had taken an inconclusive polygraph test.

Wilkens order was also based on the grounds that a woman named Chante Smith had given a videotaped interview saying that Ricard was the shooter and identifying others she claimed were present, but inspectors Prentice Sanders and Napoleon Hendrix had merely placed the statement in their file rather than turn it over to prosecutors, and that Ricard had confessed months before the prosecution turned the videotape of his statement over to the defense. Prosecutors later dropped the case rather than retry it, and when Tennison moved for a declaration of factual innocence, the district attorney responded: The People concur that Petitioner is factually innocent pursuant to Penal Code section 851.8.

Tennison and Goff then brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the inspectors for allegedly withholding material, exculpatory evidence, who in turn moved for summary judgment asserting absolute and qualified immunity, but Wilken rejected the inspectors argument that the plaintiffs needed to establish that the inspectors acted in bad faith in withholding the confession.The appears court rejected the inspectors argument that the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence applied only to prosecutors and not police officers, and agreed with Wilken that Tennison and Goff did not need to show bad faith to establish Sec. 1983 liability.

The Inspectors received a Mirandized confession by someone who had been named by a reliable witness, known to the officers, who recounted events surrounding the murder in detail, and whose account contradicted that of the prosecutions witnesses, he wrote. The evidence certainly undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.

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