Decision of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Joseph Hrvol and David Richter Have Qualified Immunity From a Section 1983 Lawsuit
In 1978, Curtis W. McGhee, Jr. and Terry Harrington were convicted of murdering John Schweer, a retired police department captain who was working as a security guard. McGhee and Harrington were each sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2002, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed Harrington’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, finding the prosecutor committed a Brady v. Maryland (1963) violation by failing to disclose evidence of an alternative suspect. The current prosecutor, Matthew Wilber, concluded it would be impossible to retry Harrington and also agreed to move to vacate McGhee’s conviction. McGhee agreed to enter a plea to second-degree…
