Tight frame

In the summer of 1977, a retired police officer working as a security guard was shot and killed at a car dealership in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

A white suspect was identified by a witness. That suspect was arrested.

But police changed direction after they picked up a 16-year-old black youth for stealing cars. When pressed for information on the Council Bluffs murder, the youth fingered Terry Harrington and another black youth, Curtis McGhee. Though his initial statements were inaccurate on key details, police and prosecutors relied on the 16-year-old to build a murder case and conviction.

Decades later, the convicted men obtained official files showing that police and prosecutors coaxed the witness to implicate them while ignoring evidence that pointed to the white suspect. Then the sole witness against them recanted.

The Iowa courts overturned their convictions five years ago. Harrington and McGhee then sued prosecutors and police for violating their civil rights. They alleged the prosecutors knowingly used false testimony to convict them.

Last fall, the case arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court, where an Obama administration lawyer argued on behalf of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, that there is no constitutional "right not to be framed."

Several justices said they found that argument appalling.

In the past, the high court had said prosecutors cannot be sued for doing their jobs, even if they sometimes convict the wrong defendant. In arguments last fall, a lawyer for the prosecutors agreed police can be sued for fabricating evidence, but not prosecutors, even if they work together.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said he found that "a strange proposition." Justice John Paul Stevens called it "perverse."

Facing a likely loss in the high court, the Iowa county moved to settle the case. Over the holidays, the county agreed to pay $12 million to the two innocent black men who'd each spent 26 years in prison.

Last week, the Supreme Court said it was dismissing the case because it was settled.

Shielding prosecutors who act in good faith from being held personally responsible if they "get it wrong" is one thing. But knowingly framing an innocent defendant is the furthest thing from "good faith."

The court should have issued a written guidance and finding that the settlement is all very nice, but that prosecutors can indeed be sued, personally, based on a preponderance of evidence that they knowingly framed innocent men.