Civil Liberties

Billy Binion | From the October 2024 issue

Consider the following hypothetical: You are jailed for two years as you await trial for murder. You are facing the death penalty. You have cancer, which had been in remission until you were incarcerated without proper treatment and monitoring. And, it turns out, you were charged based on a false witness statement, a fact that the local prosecutor allegedly encouraged the destruction of evidence to obscure.

Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse because such government employees are entitled to absolute immunity.

That is, unfortunately, not a hypothetical. It describes the case surrounding Nickie Miller, a Kentucky man who was implicated in a bizarre murder plot by a woman to whom the government had offered a deal to avoid prison time. That witness, Natasha Martin, almost immediately sought to recant. Law enforcement wouldn't accept that. She testified before a grand jury, and then she tried to recant again, writing in jailhouse letters that her statement came in response to "coercive interrogation techniques, threats, and undisclosed promises of consideration."

The story will fly under the radar. It........

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