Prosecutors above the law?!?

For those of you who don't know, my husband is in law school. With all his fancy lawyer knowledge, he has been chipping away at my faith in the judicial system... slowly, but surely lol. Anyway, if you were listening to NPR this morning, they had a piece about a guy who was recently released from prison. He was wrongly convicted of murder, and spent 25 years in jail. Mr. McGhee is now suing the prosecutors who tried his case, and this case was heard before the Supreme Court today. The NPR piece was entitled: "Can Prosecutors be sued by people they framed?" You can listen to it here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120069519

Anyway, Dwayne worked on a case this summer with a gentleman who claims he was wrongly accused and convicted of a crime, and spent several years in jail. He also wanted to sue the prosecutors who put him behind bars. This is where we learned a bit about prosecutorial immunity, hence our interest in Mr. McGhee's suit.

To make a long story short, the Obama Administration submitted their position on prosecutorial immunity via an amicus brief that was presented to the Supreme Court. In this brief, the government asserts that prosecutors should enjoy absolute immunity, even when "the prosecutor allegedly procured
false testimony during the criminal investigation and then introduced that same testimony against the criminal defendant at trial to obtain a conviction." Since I am hard at work, and don't spend company hours doing non-work-related things, I haven't read through the entire brief. But, you can see it here:

http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/07-08/08-1065_PetitionerAmCuUSA.pdf

I have to finish reading everything completely, but this scares me. I really believe prosecutors should have a healthy level of fear when trying to convict someone of a crime. Something should be there to encourage them to do their job honestly and fairly. If they are granted absolute immunity, what incentive do they have to treat the average accused criminal fairly? I supposed I can understand some level of immunity to mitigate all kinds of random litigation. But absolute?

Obama would prefer to see the judicial system (a system that I think should be protecting citizens) risk putting more innocent Americans in jail, than prosecutors. No recourse for Mr. McGhee? He should just go home and be happy to be out of jail? Definitely gives me pause.. you?

Maybe I'm wrong, and page 35 of the brief says: 'SIKE' in bold 56 size font... maybe.


*DISCLAIMER* I know nothing about the law.. so if you're an attorney and need to correct anything i said, feel free :)