By Brian Bowling
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
A Braddock man wrongfully convicted of a 1988 murder wants the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that Allegheny County can’t be held responsible for the way six former county homicide detectives violated his civil rights.
Drew Whitley, 55, spent 17 years in prison after he was convicted in 1989 for the murder of Noreen Malloy outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Duquesne. He was freed in 2006 after a DNA test cleared him, and he sued the detectives and the county for malicious prosecution and violating his right to a fair trial.
U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti ruled in November 2010 that the investigation of Whitley was “reckless” but the detectives were immune from liability. No court had ruled before 1989 that a reckless investigation violates a suspect’s civil rights so the detectives didn’t have “fair warning” that their slipshod investigation violated Whitley’s rights, the judge said.
via Braddock man appeals wrongful conviction claim to U.S. Supreme Court – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
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