Butler v. San Diego District Attorney's Office

Plaintiffs are six black men who were tried in California state court for the felony-murder of a police officer who had been shot and killed while chasing a fleeing suspect through a San Diego park in 1988. Defendants-appellants are the prosecutor in the case, San Diego Deputy District Attorney Keith Burt, and his investigator, District Attorney Investigator Edward Cervantes. The trial took place in 1993-94. The star witness at trial was the then- *958 incarcerated Darin Palmer, who had agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. Four of the six plaintiffs were found guilty, one pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, and one was acquitted. The five convicted defendants were sentenced to long prison terms.

In 1997, an article in the San Diego Uniortr-Tribune described favors provided by Burt and Cervantes to Palmer while he was a cooperating witness against plaintiffs. Among other things, the Union-Tribune article stated that Burt and Cervantes repeatedly transferred Palmer from prison to the San Diego District Attorney’s office for sexual trysts with his wife and other women. The Union-Tribune ran photographs of Palmer and his wife having sex in a place clearly recognizable as the…