Jackson Free Press

Read the court's ruling (PDF).

Hinds County Court Judge Houston Patton is immune from a civil lawsuit alleging that he violated a Mendenhall man's constitutional rights, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided yesterday. The appeals court reversed a February 2010 decision by U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi Judge Tom Lee that Patton's conduct was not protected by his status as a judge.

"Well, the only thing I can say is that the Fifth Circuit made the right decision," Patton, who won reelection in November, said.

James Jennings sued Patton in 2008 for wrongful prosecution. His suit stemmed from a 1997 incident in which Patton alleged that Jennings had tried to bribe him over an earlier civil lawsuit. Patton assisted the Hinds County District Attorney's office in an investigation, and the DA's office indicted Jennings on bribery charges. In Nov. 2005, prosecutors dismissed the charges for lack of merit.

In his Feb. 2010 decision, Lee found, "In the court's opinion, under the version of facts offered by Jennings ... Patton's actions may not fairly be characterized as judicial."

Patton appealed Lee's decision to the Fifth Circuit in August. Yesterday, the appeals court decided that, as a public official, Patton was entitled to "qualified immunity" from Jenning's suit.

"The doctrine of qualified immunity protects public officials from liability for civil damages 'insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,'" the court wrote. "Indeed, even taking the facts in the light most favorable to Jennings, we do not see how, based on our precedents, Jennings has alleged a cognizable constitutional violation. ... We have held that 'causing charges to be filed without probable cause will not without more violate the Constitution.'"

Jennings' attorney, Victor Fleitas, did not immediately return a call for comment.