Wrongfully convicted: 9th Circuit affirms Judge Slaughter’s denial of qualified immunity in Corona case

Kimberly Long, a mother cleared of her murder conviction, will be able to bring the police officers who investigated her case to court. 

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal found Aug. 4 that California Central District Judge Fred Slaughter properly ruled that the five officer defendants are not protected under California’s police officer immunity law.

Long’s second amended complaint, filed Jan. 26, 2023, claims that the officers hid evidence in her favor and manipulated witnesses against her when they investigated her for the 2003 murder of her boyfriend, Oswaldo Conde. Long was convicted by jury of second degree murder in 2005 and sentenced to 15 years to life. The California Supreme Court vacated Long’s conviction on Nov. 30, 2020, finding that the prosecutor’s timeline did not add up.

“The prosecution expert opined at trial that the victim’s head injuries would have caused death within 10 to 15 minutes. The prosecution’s own evidence showed Long was over two miles away between 11:00 p.m. and 1:20 a.m.,” the ruling said.

Long’s 2023 complaint said that the defendants had found Long’s bloodless jacket, sitting on a bloody rug, and not turned it over to Long’s defense. The defendants also destroyed a champagne bottle and cup found at the house that would have shown other individuals had been with Conde at the time of his murder, the complaint said.

“The suppressed essential report reflecting police impressions of the physical evidence fully supported Long’s account of discovering Conde dead, and fatally undermined Defendants’ theory that Long was the murderer,” her complaint says.

The complaint further said that the defendants fed false information to Long’s alibi, to place her at her apartment at the time of Conde’s murder.

Long’s lawsuit against the six officers involved in her investigation, and Corona, brings counts of due process violation, illegal prosecution, failure to intervene, conspiracy to deprive constitutional rights, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and violation of the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.

The defendants asked Slaughter, the district judge handling Long’s 2023 lawsuit, to throw out the case on the basis that they had qualified immunity. Slaughter threw out the single cause of action for conspiracy on July 17, 2024, but kept the remaining counts. The defendants appealed.

The Ninth Circuit found that Long’s allegations, if proven true, would clearly show a violation of her constitutional rights.