WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said yesterday that it would take up a Los Angeles case to decide whether a chief prosecutor can be held liable for a man’s wrongful conviction of murder.

The case of Van de Kamp v. Goldstein will test the reach of the longstanding legal rule that prosecutors are immune from being sued, even when the defendants are shown to be innocent. Prosecutors must be free to do their jobs without fear of being sued later, the high court said in 1976.

This rule of “absolute immunity” applies when a prosecutor “acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties,” the justices said then. But it is not clear whether this immunity rule protects supervising prosecutors against suits over alleged management failures.

Thomas L. Goldstein, a Marine Corps veteran from Long Beach, Calif., who spent 24 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned in 2004, is not asking the Supreme Court to throw out the legal shield for prosecutors. Instead, he argues it should be limited to prosecutors who appear in court, not to supervisors who set policies for the county.

After his release, Mr. Goldstein sued John Van de Kamp, who was the Los Angeles County district attorney between 1975 and 1983. He alleged that Mr. Van de Kamp and his top deputy allowed county prosecutors to make use of jailhouse informants, many of whom were unreliable and untrustworthy.

Moreover, the county had no system for sharing information on whether informants had been used before and given promises in exchange for their testimony.

In Mr. Goldstein’s case, a repeat criminal, Edward Fink, was put on the witness stand to testify that Mr. Goldstein, while in a holding cell, had confessed to shooting his neighbor. Mr. Goldstein maintained his innocence. Years later, it was disclosed that the informant lied when he denied receiving favors from county officials in exchange for his testimony.

Mr. Goldstein said his suit, if successful, “would put every prosecutor’s office on notice they need to establish an information management system for informants. And that will result in fewer wrongful convictions.”

Also Monday, the court refused to hear an appeal contending it was cruel and unusual punishment for South Carolina to send a 12-year-old to prison for 30 years for the murder of his grandparents. The boy, Christopher Pittman, was said to be the only person serving such a long prison term for a crime at such a young age.