Jackson v. City of San Diego

The emotionally charged question in this appeal is whether an innocent man, convicted and imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, can obtain damages for the entire period of his incarceration.

We are unable to treat this question as an original proposition. The Legislature in enacting the California Tort Claims Act (Gov. Code, § 810 et seq.) has explored and attempted to balance the competing policy considerations for and against governmental immunity. By expressly providing in section 820.4 that a public employee is liable for false arrest or false imprisonment, the Legislature acknowledged the importance of the individual’s right of freedom and to move about in society in an unrestrained manner free from oppressive action. However, in granting immunity to the public employee for malicious prosecution (§ 821.6) it recognized the chilling effect and impediments to law enforcement if public officers and public prosecutors were to be held liable for their official conduct. (See White v. Towers (1951) 37 Cal.2d 727 [ 235 P.2d 209 , 28 A.L.R.2d 636 ]; also generally, A Study Relating to Sovereign Immunity, 5 Cal. Law Revision Com. Rep. (1963) pp. 406-415.) As we will…