Limits Placed on DA Immunity
A federal appeals court has ruled that qualified immunity does not apply to protect a former deputy district attorney from being personally sued. The claim against the deputy district attorney arises from her approval of a search warrant of a student journalist's home due to a professor's unhappiness over a parody in a University of Northern Colorado community newspaper, the Howling Pig.
The search was performed by Greeley police searching for evidence to support a charge of criminal libel. But the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a federal district court, found that the officials overseeing the matter should have known that the First Amendment protected the "Junius Puke" parody of professor Junius Peake from prosecution under the libel law.
Following the appearance of the parody in print, the home of the student journalist Thomas Mink, and that of his mother, was searched by the police.
The appeals court held in its written opinion that the district court erred in requiring direct participation by DA Knox in the civil rights deprivation to establish a valid cause of action against her. All that was needed was "an affirmative link between the constitutional deprivation and the officer's exercise of control or direction," explains the 10th Circuit in its written opinion.
The 10th Circuit previously ruled that absolute immunity didn't apply to Knox because she was acting as an investigator rather than an advocate in the case. Thus, the 10th Circuit said, qualified immunity did not apply to prevent former deputy DA Susan Knox from being personally sued over the search.
Then an employee of the state's 19th Judicial District, Knox now works as a federal prosecutor in Colorado. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado filed suit on Mink's behalf in an effort to invalidate the criminal libel law, but expressed satisfaction over the result.