INDIANA, Pa. (AP) -
A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling declining to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a man who served more than three decades in prison in the slaying of a teenage girl before his conviction was overturned due to new DNA evidence.
The Indiana Gazette reports that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month rejected arguments from two former Indiana County prosecutors challenging the legal standing of the lawsuit by Lewis James Fogle.
The Indiana resident, who is now 68, was convicted in 1982 in the 1976 rape and murder of 15-year-old Deann Katherine Long near Cherry Tree, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh. He was released in 2015 after 34 years in prison and prosecutors dismissed charges, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to re-convict.
The two former prosecutors argued that they had immunity from Fogle’s lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, but the appeals court ruled April 20 that the conduct alleged would “fall outside the narrow doctrine of absolute immunity and survive a motion to dismiss.”
“Regrettably, no one has been convicted of the tragic rape and murder of Kathy Long,” Circuit Judge Paul Matey wrote for the court. The lawsuit, which also names the county and state troopers, alleges that the defendants used statements and witnesses they knew were untrue or unreliable to secure a conviction.
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