Last year, prosecutors in the county of Pottawattamie, Iowa, narrowly avoided a potential ruling by the Supreme Court that would have held them liable for their role in the wrongful conviction of two black teenagers. The two prosecutors in that case, Joseph Hrvol and David Richter, coerced false testimony from a 16-year-old witness, fabricated evidence and withheld exculpatory evidence, resulting in the 1978 conviction of Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee for the murder of an off-duty police officer.

In fact, the prosecutors built an entire case against the young men despite having strong evidence from early in the investigation that another man had committed the murder. Harrington and McGhee were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Both men served nearly 20 years before they were able to access the police reports that revealed the prosecutors' actions. 

After spending another five years in prison challenging their conviction, Harrington and McGhee were finally released. They brought civil rights suits against the county and the prosecutors in an attempt to collect damages for the deprivation of their liberty and for what they contended was the prosecutors' racially motivated violation of their constitutional rights. Federal courts found that the prosecutors were immune from a suit for their prosecutorial actions -- that is, for the actions they took after charges had been filed against the two young men. But the prosecutors were not immune from a suit for their investigatory acts: fabricating and manufacturing evidence before formal charges were filed. 

The Supreme Court decided to review the case last term. The Obama administration, through Solicitor General Elena Kagan, filed a brief supporting the prosecutors' argument that they should be immune from civil liability for their actions framing Harrington and McGhee. But perhaps recognizing the likelihood that the court would not look favorably on a claim for absolute immunity by prosecutors on such egregious facts -- and most likely at the urging of prosecutors' offices across the nation seeking to avoid an unfavorable court decision -- Pottawattamie officials settled the case for $12 million, two months after oral argument was heard and the Supreme Court dismissed the case.

But as the court's 2010 term opens this week, the issue of prosecutorial misconduct is once again before the bench. This time the case involves a multimillion-dollar judgment awarded to another black man who was prosecuted by the New Orleans district attorney's office and convicted for a murder he did not commit. John Thompson spent 14 years on death row, and learned only a few weeks before his execution date that the prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence that would likely have demonstrated that he was not the murderer.

He spent another four years in prison challenging his wrongful conviction and was finally granted a new trial. The jury deliberated for 35 minutes before acquitting Thompson of the murder. Thompson then brought a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, charging that the D.A.'s office had deprived him of his constitutional rights. A jury ruled in Thompson's favor, awarding him $14 million -- $1 million for every year he was held on death row.