Searcey v. Dean

Issues: (1) Whether in 1989 a law-enforcement officer violated a plaintiff’s substantive due process rights merely by recklessly gathering “unreliable” evidence implicating the plaintiff in a crime even if the prosecutor and defense counsel had access to all information needed to assess the reliability of the evidence gathered, and even if the evidence gathered was never used at a plaintiff’s criminal trial because the plaintiff voluntarily pleaded to charges; (2) whether in 1989 a law-enforcement officer violated a plaintiff’s clearly established substantive due process right prohibiting the “manufacture of false evidence” by conducting an interview or interrogation during which false statements incriminating the plaintiff were made, even if the plaintiff voluntarily pleaded to charges; and (3) whether a county can be liable for the decision of a sheriff, as final policymaker, to fail to stop a multi-suspect investigation when the jury found that the sheriff was not responsible for any constitutional violation or any conspiracy; the plaintiffs identified no municipal policy; and there was no evidence of a historical pattern of constitutional violations.