Tioga County District Attorney Gerald Keene gives opening arguments in the Harris murder trial in Tioga County Court, on July 15, 2009. Photo: Jeff Richards, Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo Court Denies Immunity for Former DA From Claims in Wrongful Prosecution Suit by Man Cleared of Killing Wife
In a case that attracted national media attention, Tioga County businessman Calvin Harris was accused of killing his wife Michele Harris in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Neither Michele Harris' body nor a murder weapon were ever found and the fourth trial for murder charges against Calvin Harris, in 2016, ended in acquittal.
March 30, 2023 at 05:44 PM
4 minute read
When criminal convictions are overturned, the prosecutors who built those cases are generally shielded from liability under the absolute immunity doctrine—even in matters where it was found that they fabricated evidence or hid potentially exculpatory information from the defense.
But a federal judge found that the former Tioga County district attorney who prosecuted a man convicted—and later cleared—of killing his wife in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks falls into a narrow exception from the doctrine.
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