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Fred Hampton — Part 3
Page 59
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Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1870 55
Attorney who aided him in these phases of his post-raid
activity are absolutely immune from civil liability for
their conduct.
Other post-raid actions of these defendants, however,
do not warrant absolute immunity. To the extent that
plaintiffs can both show injuries arising from this con-
duct and demonstrate that the defendants’ actions were
illegal and unprotected by their qualified immunity, the
defendants will be liable for damages. In particular,
the State’s Attorney’s Office’s generation of post-raid
publicity, which may have caused pre-trial prejudice to
the plaintiffs and encouraged the alleged coverup of the
true facts of the raid, is not protected by absolute im-
munity. Barr v. Mateo, 360 U.S. 654 (1959), said that a
federal official who, even maliciously, issues a false and
damaging publication the issuance of which is within
the parameters of his official duties, is absolutely im-
mune from liability for libel. However, the Supreme
Court this term noted that
s
a quite different question would have been pre-
sented had the officer ignored an express stat-
utory or constitutional limitation on his authori-
Barr did not, therefore, purport to depart from
the general rule, which long prevailed, that a
federal official may not with impunity ignore the
limitations which the controlling law has placed on
his powers.
Butz, supra at 4955. Thus, Barr does not control in this
case where the state officials’ post-raid public relations
activity allegedly violated specific statutory and con-
stitutional guarantees.
Further, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Butz
and IJmbler do not suggest that a state prosecutor’s
publicity actions should be absolutely immune from civil
liability. In Butz, one of the actions plaintiff complained
of was the defendants’ issuance of a deceptive press
release. Butz, supra at 4958. And the language in Butz
suggests that the defendants were absolutely immune
for most of their conduct vis-a-vis the plaintiff. However,
“the task of applying the foregoing principles” to the
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