Does the status of a police officer give them absolute immunity in their role as witnesses?

MultiRegion, United States of America

The following excerpt is from White v. Frank, 855 F.2d 956 (2nd Cir. 1988):

6 No argument is made that appellants' status as police officers confers additional force to their claim to absolute immunity in their role as witnesses. Indeed, appellants urge us to treat police officer-witnesses no differently from any other witness. Cf. Briscoe v. LaHue, supra, 460 U.S. at 335-36, 103 S.Ct. at 1116 ("When a police officer appears as a witness, he may reasonably be viewed as acting like any other witness...."). We have assumed in the past that police officers are subject to liability for malicious prosecution as any other defendant would be, assuming of course that the high standard of liability is met. See, e.g., Russo v. New York, supra; Singleton v. City of New York, supra.

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