A Innocence Project analysis found that prosecutorial misconduct contributed to wrongful convictions in 43% of exonerations. Yet of the thousands of documented cases of misconduct, only about 1 in 660 prosecutors faced any disciplinary action. The Supreme Court's 1976 Imbler v. Pachtman ruling grants prosecutors absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for actions taken during prosecution — even when they deliberately withhold exculpatory evidence or suborn perjury. In 2021, a ProPublica investigation found that in thousands of misconduct cases, disbarment was virtually unheard of.
“A prosecutor can send an innocent person to death row by hiding evidence, and they face zero consequences. Absolute immunity means zero accountability.”
From “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
Anthony Ray Hinton spent thirty years on Alabama's death row for a murder he didn't commit. The prosecution had withheld evidence that could have proven his innocence. When he was finally exonerated in 2015, the prosecutors who buried that evidence faced no consequences. His case is far from unique. In fact, it represents a systemic problem that has remained largely invisible to the public: prosecutors who commit misconduct almost never face discipline.
The Innocence Project, which has helped exonerate hundreds of wrongfully convicted individuals, conducted a comprehensive analysis of its cases and found that prosecutorial misconduct contributed to 43% of wrongful convictions. That's a staggering proportion. Despite this prevalence, their research uncovered a startling disparity in accountability. Of thousands of documented cases involving prosecutorial misconduct, only approximately 1 in 660 prosecutors faced any disciplinary action whatsoever. Not criminal charges. Not disbarment. Any action at all.
The roots of this accountability gap trace back to a 1976 Supreme Court decision most Americans have never heard of. In Imbler v. Pachtman, the Court ruled that prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for actions taken during the prosecution of cases. This means a prosecutor cannot be sued, even if they knowingly fabricate evidence or deliberately hide exculpatory evidence that could prove a defendant's innocence. The ruling was intended to protect prosecutors from frivolous suits that might make them hesitant to pursue cases. Instead, it created a legal shield around prosecutorial misconduct.
The official response to criticism of this system has long been that prosecutors are held accountable through other means: criminal charges, bar discipline, or reversal of convictions. The theory sounds reasonable in abstract. In practice, it fails spectacularly. Prosecutors are rarely prosecuted by their peers in district attorney offices. Bar associations, which theoretically could discipline attorneys who violate ethical rules, have proven unwilling or unable to do so consistently. A 2021 ProPublica investigation examined thousands of cases where prosecutors had been found to have engaged in serious misconduct—hiding evidence, coercing witnesses, presenting false testimony. Across the entire country, disbarment was virtually unheard of.
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Confirmed: They Were Right
The truth comes out. Officially documented.
Confirmed: They Were Right
The truth comes out. Officially documented.
The evidence supporting this claim is not circumstantial. The Innocence Project's data is publicly available and built on case-by-case documentation. The Supreme Court's Imbler ruling is a matter of public record. ProPublica's investigation interviewed former prosecutors, reviewed court documents, and analyzed disciplinary records across multiple states. Their reporting found individual prosecutors with long histories of misconduct who continued to practice law and prosecute cases for decades.
What makes this claim significant is not that it represents a vast conspiracy. Rather, it documents a system-wide failure of accountability that exists within the official legal framework. Prosecutors are officers of the court, bound by ethical obligations and constitutional duties. Yet the combination of absolute immunity and the practical absence of bar discipline creates a situation where the consequences for prosecutorial misconduct are essentially zero.
For citizens who believe the justice system operates fairly and holds all its participants accountable, this is uncomfortable. When those tasked with pursuing justice face virtually no personal risk for engaging in serious ethical violations, public trust in the system erodes. More troubling still, it means that innocent people will continue to be convicted. The system isn't broken. It's working exactly as the legal doctrine permits, which is precisely the problem.
Beat the odds
This had a 0.2% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~50Network
Secret kept
7.8 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
