Prometheus 6

Sanders says his clients have not admitted to any wrongdoing. They haven't admitted or denied that they framed two men for murder. Instead, they are claiming that their guilt doesn't matter, that it was legal either way.

But to McGhee and Harrington, it does matter. They spent 25 years behind bars for a crime that they almost certainly did not commit. And now the men have gone to the Supreme Court not for justice but for the simple right to seek it.

"If the court doesn't protect an American from being framed for murder, if there isn't a remedy for being put in prison for something he didn't do based on evidence falsified against him," says McGhee's layer, Steve Davis, "then I'm going to move."

When Is It Legal to Frame a Man for Murder?
By Claire Suddath

In July 1977, retired police captain John Schweer was shot and killed while working as a night watchman at an Oldsmobile dealership in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Two teenagers, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, were convicted of the murder based on evidence they allege was knowingly fabricated by prosecutors.

Pottawattamie County prosecutors David Richter and Joseph Hrvol presented a case that rested almost entirely on the testimony of a 16-year-old kid who was caught stealing cars and offered a $5,000 reward if he provided information about the murder. The witness misidentified the murder weapon, changed his story multiple times and fingered two other men before naming McGhee and Harrington in the crime. He even had to be coached by prosecutors about what to say during the trial so that his story matched the evidence. Richter and Hrvol revealed none of this at trial, nor the fact that they had previously suspected another man — one who had been positively identified by an eyewitness and had failed a polygraph test.

On Nov. 4, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments not over whether Richter and Hrvol had framed two men for murder, but whether they could be sued for it. In 2003, Iowa's supreme court overturned Harrington's conviction, while McGhee pled guilty to lesser charges and was released. Now both men are suing the Pottawattamie County prosecutors, claiming they coerced and coached witnesses, fabricated evidence and arrested them without probable cause. But according to federal law supported by numerous legal precedents, prosecutors have immunity for anything they do during a trial. Richter and Hrvol say they were just doing their job.

"If a prosecutor knowingly introduces false evidence at trial, that prosecutor is absolutely immune from lawsuit," explains Stephen Sanders, an attorney representing Richter and Hrvol. The rationale is that if prosecutors could be blamed for errors in a trial, they would become vulnerable targets for any litigious convict with an ax to grind.

"This means that some people who are genuinely wronged by a prosecutor [are not] able to recover," Sanders concedes. "But better that, the court says, than have prosecutors plagued by endless nuisance litigation or have them make decisions about whether or not to bring someone to trial based on whether they think they're going to get sued."