Opinion ID: 3019228
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deliberately Destroying Exculpatory

Text: Evidence The Amended Complaint alleges that the ADAs violated Yarris’s Fourteenth Amendment rights when they “deliberately destroyed . . . highly exculpatory information.”6 (Am. Compl. 4 The Amended Complaint also alleges that the ADAs’ conduct violated Yarris’s Fifth Amendment rights. As noted above, however, the District Court dismissed that claim, and that ruling is not now on appeal. 5 In denying absolute immunity to the ADAs, the District Court stated that Yarris alleged that the ADAs “used torture and physical coercion to extract incriminating statements.” As the ADAs point out, however, although the Amended Complaint alleges that the CID Detectives engaged in “torture” (Am. Compl. ¶ 91), there are no allegations that the ADAs did so. Accordingly, this was not a proper basis on which to deny absolute immunity to the ADAs. 6 The ADAs argue that “[t]he Complaint does not allege that the ADA Appellants expunged or destroyed investigative notes regarding the black gloves.” (Appellants’ Reply Br. at 13.) We believe, however, that Yarris’s assertion that the ADAs deliberately destroyed highly exculpatory information (Am. Compl. ¶ 92), is 10 ¶ 92.) Although we have not directly addressed whether prosecutors are absolutely immune from claims based on the destruction of exculpatory evidence, we have denied absolute immunity where a plaintiff alleged that a prosecutor knowingly failed to preserve exculpatory evidence. See Henderson v. Fisher, 631 F.2d 1115, 1120 (3d Cir. 1980) (per curiam). We have also observed that “courts have been unwilling to extend absolute immunity to a prosecutor’s alleged perjury or destruction of evidence when not closely connected to an ongoing criminal prosecution.” Davis v. Grusemeyer, 996 F.2d 617, 630 n.28 (3d Cir. 1993); but see Heidelberg v. Hammer, 577 F.2d 429, 432 (7th Cir. 1978) (prosecutor absolutely immune from suit claiming that he destroyed and falsified evidence). We believe that destroying exculpatory evidence is not related to a prosecutor’s prosecutorial function. Unlike decisions on whether to withhold evidence from the defense, decisions to destroy evidence are not related to a prosecutor’s prosecutorial function. As our late colleague Judge Becker aptly observed in Wilkinson v. Ellis, 484 F. Supp. 1072, 1083 (E.D. Pa. 1980): [O]nce the decision is made not to furnish evidence to the defense, no additional protectible prosecutorial discretion is involved in deciding to dispose of it, and . . ., while deciding not to furnish the prosecution’s evidence to the defense may be an act of advocacy, throwing the evidence away is not such an act. Accordingly, the ADAs are not entitled to absolute immunity from suit for constitutional violations caused by their alleged deliberate destruction of exculpatory evidence.