Can someone sue a witness for damages?
December 22, 2015 1:53 PM Subscribe
If someone is criminally convicted because a witness perjured themselves, what recourse does the convicted person eventually have? Can they sue that witness? Would that be a civil suit? Can they sue the government? (even though it wasn't the prosecuting attorney's fault?) If neither of those are possible, then I suppose that witness could be prosecuted for perjury?
This is for a mystery story I'm writing, where the wrongly convicted protagonist is seeking some form of justice against two witnesses who lied under oath on the stand.
This is for a mystery story I'm writing, where the wrongly convicted protagonist is seeking some form of justice against two witnesses who lied under oath on the stand.
The principle that prevents civil liability for in-court statements by witnesses, judges, lawyers, etc., is known as "judicial privilege."
posted by hhc5 at 2:07 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by hhc5 at 2:07 PM on December 22, 2015
Other than if the witnesses were prosecuted for perjury, there's not much that could be done about their testimony. If your character can get the witnesses to repeat the falsehoods outside of the court, they could possibly be sued for slander or libel.
posted by Candleman at 2:36 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by Candleman at 2:36 PM on December 22, 2015
If your character can get the witnesses to repeat the falsehoods outside of the court, they could possibly be sued for slander or libel
I question if that would work. The damage to the protagonist seems to flow from the false testimony, not false statements made outside of court. (To bring a successful defamation case, you must, among other things, show that the unprivileged false statement at issue caused the damage you want to recover.)
posted by bearwife at 2:54 PM on December 22, 2015
I question if that would work. The damage to the protagonist seems to flow from the false testimony, not false statements made outside of court. (To bring a successful defamation case, you must, among other things, show that the unprivileged false statement at issue caused the damage you want to recover.)
posted by bearwife at 2:54 PM on December 22, 2015
Just to clear up a general misconception about victims of crimes and prosecutions of crimes: The victim has no control over whether a crime is prosecuted. TV loves to talk about pressing charges or withdrawing charges, but once a police report is made, it's out of the victim's hands. Prosecutions are by the state, on behalf of the state and the victim is incidental.
Of course, victims can refuse to cooperate. They can tell their friends not to cooperate. They can lie. All of that might sink a prosecution or cause police to not care enough to investigate. Victims can demand things from prosecutors and police but it's not likely to have much effect. The state's attorney will determine which cases are prosecuted; the police will control which cases are investigated enough to get the SA to contemplate prosecuting them.
In my jurisdiction, perjury is a class 3 felony and pretty much only police officers who were acting undercover are immune for testimony given in a case. But you have to prove that the statement was made under oath by a person who knew it was false. And you can't use contradictory statements during trial to demonstrate this (IIRC). Perjury is difficult to prove and not often worth the time to pursue years after someone has been convicted and eventually released. States attorneys have much higher priorities than writing wrongful convictions.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Of course, victims can refuse to cooperate. They can tell their friends not to cooperate. They can lie. All of that might sink a prosecution or cause police to not care enough to investigate. Victims can demand things from prosecutors and police but it's not likely to have much effect. The state's attorney will determine which cases are prosecuted; the police will control which cases are investigated enough to get the SA to contemplate prosecuting them.
In my jurisdiction, perjury is a class 3 felony and pretty much only police officers who were acting undercover are immune for testimony given in a case. But you have to prove that the statement was made under oath by a person who knew it was false. And you can't use contradictory statements during trial to demonstrate this (IIRC). Perjury is difficult to prove and not often worth the time to pursue years after someone has been convicted and eventually released. States attorneys have much higher priorities than writing wrongful convictions.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:08 PM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]
Or even "righting wrongful convictions" :-). Turns out writing wrongful convictions is okay with them.
posted by Cardinal Fang! at 3:15 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Cardinal Fang! at 3:15 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
What if the two witnesses got together and formed a conspiracy?
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:39 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:39 PM on December 22, 2015
an angle you might pursue in fiction if you're trying to create a conflict that plays out in a judicial setting is prosecutorial misconduct. They should have some inkling that the witnesses are lying, at least in theory.
posted by randomkeystrike at 4:22 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by randomkeystrike at 4:22 PM on December 22, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks folks, this gives me a better understanding of the legal implications.
posted by storybored at 6:21 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by storybored at 6:21 PM on December 22, 2015
For the record: jurisdiction matters. The answers above assume you are in the US; some other legal systems work very differently. Libel and slander and the role of the victim aren't even entirely consistent between the various English-speaking common law nations.
Also some prosecutors prefer to charge liars with "perverting the course of justice" or "hindering prosecution" or "making a false report." There's also "complicity," "criminal conspiracy," and so on. It all depends on circumstances too complex to detail here, including the personality of the prosecutor. Grand juries more or less do whatever a prosecutor tells them to.
(My local prosecutor loves to try people for lying, though I don't think I've seen perjury on the semi-monthly indictment report in the paper. And a large percentage of our drug busts result in several people charged with just "tampering with evidence," which kind of suggests it's the default thing to charge someone with if they were present and uncooperative.)
posted by SMPA at 8:35 PM on December 22, 2015
Also some prosecutors prefer to charge liars with "perverting the course of justice" or "hindering prosecution" or "making a false report." There's also "complicity," "criminal conspiracy," and so on. It all depends on circumstances too complex to detail here, including the personality of the prosecutor. Grand juries more or less do whatever a prosecutor tells them to.
(My local prosecutor loves to try people for lying, though I don't think I've seen perjury on the semi-monthly indictment report in the paper. And a large percentage of our drug busts result in several people charged with just "tampering with evidence," which kind of suggests it's the default thing to charge someone with if they were present and uncooperative.)
posted by SMPA at 8:35 PM on December 22, 2015
I agree with most of what's been said above, but I would add that unlike criminal law, tort law is extremely fluid, and a skillful, creative litigator can find ways to make out claims for all kinds of things. There might, depending on the fact-pattern in your story, be a way to use the perjury (and/or related conduct) as a basis for a claim for something like "intentional infliction of emotional distress*" (aka "the tort of outrage,*") or "tortuous interference,*" or even "loss of consortium.*" Also, if the perjury was demonstrably suborned by a government agent, there could very well be a way to craft a civil rights claim.
Also: Just because a claim is unlikely to succeed at trial or to survive judicial review doesn't mean you can't file it. People file total "hail Mary" lawsuits every day. A real-life attorney who gets too creative runs a number of risks, including potentially having to pay the other side's attorney's fees, but as an author, you have no such worries.
*I've used quotation marks here because it seemed like a good way to set off useful search terms for people who aren't intimately familiar with this particular jargon. This stuff isn't ordinarily written that way.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:04 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also: Just because a claim is unlikely to succeed at trial or to survive judicial review doesn't mean you can't file it. People file total "hail Mary" lawsuits every day. A real-life attorney who gets too creative runs a number of risks, including potentially having to pay the other side's attorney's fees, but as an author, you have no such worries.
*I've used quotation marks here because it seemed like a good way to set off useful search terms for people who aren't intimately familiar with this particular jargon. This stuff isn't ordinarily written that way.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:04 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
« Older OK to use topical steroid on cancerous skin? | Positive representations & stories about sex... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'd add that in general, people who have a role in the criminal justice system, including police, lawyers, judges and witnesses, usually have qualified or absolute immunity from suit. And it is also often a predicate to suit that the plaintiff -- your protagonist -- was formally exonerated.
posted by bearwife at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2015 [3 favorites]