Indiana Law Blog Article
The Supreme Court oral argument Nov. 4th in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, the subject of this ILB entry from Nov. 4, is the focus of this interesting “Argument Recap” by Erin Miller of SCOTUSBlog, dated Nov. 5th. A sample:
Justice Stevens depicted the petitioners’ view of immunity as “a strange proposition” – and Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, arguing for the United States and the petitioners, agreed it “seems a little odd.” The idea everyone found so strange was that the closer an officer is to a wrongful conviction, the more immune she is for it. Two hypotheticals Justices Ginsburg and Kennedy posed to Stephen Sanders – also arguing for the prosecutors – zeroed in on that strangeness: Could a policeman be held liable for fabricating evidence? Or could a prosecutor from another case? Sanders was forced to admit that both the policeman and the second prosecutor could be held liable, though the prosecutor of the case himself could not.