Potential Slander Case?

[RARENVENG]

What is the name of your state? ID

I recently attended a hearing where a prosecutor claimed a defendant "had alcohol problems, anger problems, has hit is family, and has been in trouble before" in order to have the defendant jailed with a $250,000 bond. The prosecutor's failed to present any evidence of stated claims at the 1st appearance or preliminary hearing.

The prosecutors statements were published by a local newspaper. Does the defendant potentially have a slander case?

 

[seniorjudge]

Q: Does the defendant potentially have a slander case?

A: Not even close.

 

[RARENVENG]

What is the reasoning behind your response?

 

[quincy]

The prosecutor has "absolute privilege" in court during a hearing, meaning that whatever he says, false and defamatory or not, cannot be used against him in a lawsuit. A reporter covering the hearing has "qualified privilege", which means that he can report everything that was said in the hearing, false and defamatory or not, and he cannot be sued for defamation.

A slander case against the prosecutor would only arise if the prosecutor were to repeat the defamatory statements outside the courthouse, and a libel suit against the reporter would only arise if the reporter did not report fairly and accurately what was said in the courthouse.

 

[seniorjudge]

The prosecutor has "absolute privilege" in court during a hearing, meaning that whatever he says, false and defamatory or not, cannot be used against him in a lawsuit. A reporter covering the hearing has "qualified privilege", which means that he can report everything that was said in the hearing, false and defamatory or not, and he cannot be sued for defamation.

A slander case against the prosecutor would only arise if the prosecutor were to repeat the defamatory statements outside the courthouse, and a libel suit against the reporter would only arise if the reporter did not report fairly and accurately what was said in the courthouse.

Amen and amen.

 

[shannon-cl]

No! you have no Slander case at all! For example: If someone Publishes or makes a Lawsuit Public...You have no recoarse because it is all Public record anyway. Even if a suit is settled out of court or withdrawn. It will always be on the record and not much can be done about that!

 

[quincy]

Well, it depends on how the information from the public record is handled. There could still be a slander case if someone took the information presented in court, either from court or from the journalist's report of the hearing or from the public record, and used it against this "defendant" without proof of it being true. If the information presented in court is false and defamatory, it will be false and defamatory outside of the courtroom, and, without privilege to protect a person from a defamation suit, the person repeating the false and defamatory comments can be sued.

 

[RARENVENG]

Thank you Quincy.

I am curious why a prosecutor is allowed to present untruths as facts when a case is being presented. Can you provide me with an example of when it would be okay for a prosecutor to lie in order to establish a person's guilt?

I am obviously not a lawyer and am struggling on why that is acceptable.

 

[quincy]

Sure.

The prosecutor's intent is to show guilt. A person is generally not arrested and charged with a crime unless there is a legitimate reason to believe this person committed the crime. Perhaps, however, there is only circumstantial evidence tying a defendant to a crime that the prosecutor is convinced the defendant committed. In order to prove the case against the defendant, and get this "criminal" off the streets, the prosecutor may try to show patterns of behavior, motives, and so on, which would convince a jury that the defendant is, in fact, guilty, even when the evidence is not so clear cut. If there is no "smoking gun", then the prosecutor must create a scenario that puts the defendant at the scene of the crime. I don't think prosecutors would think of their arguments as lies, necessarily, but they could very well be. And these "lies" would be protected by absolute privilege.

The defense attorney's intent, on the other hand, is to show his client is not guilty. He can lie, too, to throw suspicion on others, perhaps, to create a reasonable doubt that his client committed the crime. And he will certainly concentrate on the fact that there is no concrete evidence tying his client to the crime.

Unfortunately, prosecution "lies" have resulted, in the past, in innocent people being convicted of crimes they did not commit. Likewise, defense "lies" have allowed the release of some guilty people.

The system is not perfect.