Darrell D. Kincaid v. Daniel Eberle, Individually and in His Capacity as an Agent or Employee of the Lafayette, Indiana Police Department

This appeal presents a question of first impression but little difficulty: whether a witness before a grand jury has, as the district court held, absolute immunity from a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for giving false testimony to the damage of the plaintiff. Briscoe v. LaHue,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 1108, 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983), holds that a witness at trial has such immunity, and although the Court reserved the question whether its holding applied to pretrial proceedings, id. at 1112 n. 5, we cannot see how a different result could be reached. The position at common law, on which the Court laid heavy…