A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that prosecutors can be sued over allegations that they failed to develop policies for the use of jailhouse informants in criminal cases.
The ruling came in a civil damages case filed by Thomas L. Goldstein, who spent 24 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction based largely on the testimony of jailhouse informant Edward F. Fink.
Goldstein was convicted in the 1979 shotgun slaying of John McGinest in Long Beach. Fink testified that Goldstein confessed to the murder while they were in the Long Beach City Jail.
Goldstein maintained his innocence and more than two decades later, a federal judge overturned the conviction because of Fink's credibility problems as well as the prosecutors' failure to tell Goldstein's attorney that they had made a deal to go easy on Fink in a separate criminal case.
After he was freed in 2004, Goldstein sued several Long Beach police officers, Los Angeles County, former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. John K. Van de Kamp and his chief assistant, Curt Livesay, contending that his federal civil rights had been violated.
In particular, Goldstein alleged that Van de Kamp and Livesay had failed to develop policies and procedures, and failed to adequately train and supervise their subordinates, to fulfill their constitutional obligation of ensuring that information regarding jailhouse informants was shared among prosecutors.
In its 3-0 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a district court ruling and rejected Van de Kamp and Livesay's contention that they were entitled to absolute immunity.
The decision marked the first time that the 9th Circuit has considered this issue, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the precise question. Because of the potential ramifications for prosecutors, Loyola Law School professor Laurie L. Levenson said she thought the case might go to the Supreme Court.
"I'm really happy with the decision," Goldstein said by telephone. "Jailhouse informants have been used by prosecutors to put a lot of innocent people in prison.... The ruling by this court is the first step toward making district attorneys accountable for their actions."
The failure of the district attorney's office to formulate a policy about jailhouse informants led to "the wholesale deprivation of constitutional rights" of defendants whose cases involved the use of testimony by such informants, said David McLane, one of Goldstein's attorneys.
