A New York Criminal Lawyer said the plaintiffs filed an appeal with the New York Appellate Court for the dismissal of their complaint against the defendants, who are police officers and government officials, on the grounds of absolute and qualified immunity.
he appellants sued the respondents because of their wrongful investigation, arrest and imprisonment by the law enforcers for the commission of criminal offenses, namely, kidnapping, rape and murder. The defendants raised the defense of qualified and absolute immunity in the performance of their official duties for the conduct of their police investigations that led to the arrest and incarceration of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs are parents under investigation for child abuse, child molestation and occult-related rape and murder for several years already. One of the defendants, an employee of the Texas human services, was assigned to their case. The parents of the plaintiffs file complaints for sex abuse allegations made by the latter to their children. This caused the children to live in a foster home where another defendant meets them on a monthly basis. The plaintiffs are a couple with separate children from their previous marriage. A Manhattan Criminal Lawyer said the male plaintiff was indicted with a criminal offense for allegedly sexually abusing one of his daughters. This prompted the emergency removal of their children from the plaintiff’s custody and where transferred to various foster homes. The other remaining defendant was the caseworker to one of the foster homes where the children resided.
While at the foster homes, the children started to share stories about their experiences of sexual abuses committed by their parents and grandparents and even strangers on several accounts on different times. They even told narrations about the murder and dismemberment of babies and children by their parents and grandparents.
The manner of inquiries through coercions made by the defendants was questioned by the district court that resulted to the dropping of charges for child abuse against the appellants for the testimonies of the children were considered untrustworthy.
The Texas police officers made investigations with regard to the ritualistic behavior and occult practices of the plaintiffs. The law enforcer defendants had discussions with the children to convince them of the possibility that their parents were engaged in some sort of ritualistic abuse. Another witness presented in court testified as to his participation in the ritualistic murder of infants at the plaintiff’s property. Such statements were then corroborated by the children who implicated the appellants to said criminal activities.
A special prosecutor was assigned involving the case of the plaintiffs for sexual child abuse (sex crimes) charges. The prosecutor and the plaintiffs arrived at plea agreements that led to discovery of evidence that implicated them to other crimes such as the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a minor victim. One of the plaintiffs provided a legitimate alibi on its face. Due to several testimonies of witnesses and findings of evidence by the police investigators, the appellants were arrested and imprisoned. A few years, thereafter, the charges were dropped due to the mishandling of the case by herein defendants in the conduct of their investigations.
The solitary issue of the appeal is whether the defendants are entitled to either absolute or qualified immunity in the performance of their official duties.
Considering a previous case decided by the court, it held that “prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity for those activities “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Thus, the special prosecutor was absolutely immune for the filing of criminal charges against the appellants. As to the other defendants, they cited qualified immunity as provided in one jurisprudence, which states that “[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” This court ruling required the plaintiff to establish violations of their constitutional rights by the defendants.
To plainly sum up the case, the conduct of medical examinations of the children, the retrieval of evidentiary matters at the plaintiff’s properties and the testimonies of adult witness provided the defendants probable cause to file an action against the plaintiffs. Incidentally, the court affirmed the decision of the district court in dismissing the complaint file by the appellants.
Criminal accusations and charges sometimes led to miscarriage of justice due to the improper and unlawful conduct of investigating officers that would tantamount to violations of one’s constitutional rights. For your safety and protection against these abuses, seek the legal assistance of a criminal attorney at Stephen Bilkis and Associates. Let your lawyer help you in upholding these rights against unwarranted criminal suits.