A Prosecutor Allegedly Told a Witness To Destroy Evidence. He Can’t Be Sued for It.
Consider the following hypothetical: You are jailed for two years as you await trial for murder. You are facing the death penalty. You have cancer, which had been in remission until you were incarcerated without proper treatment and monitoring. And, it turns out, you were charged based on a false witness statement, a fact that the local prosecutor allegedly encouraged the destruction of evidence to obscure.
Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse because such government employees are entitled to absolute immunity.
That is, unfortunately, not a hypothetical. It describes the case surrounding Nickie Miller, a Kentucky man who was implicated in a bizarre murder plot by a woman to whom the government had offered a deal to avoid prison time. That witness, Natasha Martin, almost immediately sought to recant. Law enforcement wouldn’t accept that. She testified before a grand jury, and then she tried to recant again, writing in jailhouse letters that her statement came in response to “coercive interrogation techniques, threats, and undisclosed promises of consideration.”
The story will fly under the radar. It shouldn’t.
Nickie Miller was jailed for 2 years for a murder he didn’t commit—in part because a prosecutor reportedly ordered a witness to destroy evidence of Miller’s innocence.
Miller had cancer. It was in remission, but it relapsed… https://t.co/UNFEKAPTc4
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) July 3, 2024
When Miller’s defense team caught wind of those letters, it obtained a court order for them. Martin asked Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Keith Craycraft how she should comply, to which he allegedly responded that she should destroy the correspondence. She did. (Craycraft acknowledges he spoke with Martin by phone after the court order but denies telling her to destroy evidence.)
The state eventually dropped the charges against Miller. His two years in jail, however, took a toll, according to his criminal defense attorney, who said Mille
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