Case ID: f-appx_678/html/0482-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Walter J. KURKA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John PROBST; Ben Jaffa, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 15-35121
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted January 18, 2017 
    
    Filed January 30, 2017
    Walter J. Kurka, Pro Se
    Mark Cucci, Assistant Attorney General, AGAK—Office of the Alaska Attorney General, Anchorage, AK, for Defendants-Appellees
    Before: TROTT, TASHIMA, and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument, See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Walter J. Kurka appeals pro se from the district court’s judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging federal and state law claims relating to misdemeanor criminal charges against him in Alaska state court. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo. Galen v. County of Los Angeles, 477 F.3d 652, 658 (9th Cir. 2007) (qualified immunity); Milstein v. Cooley, 257 F.3d 1004, 1007 (9th Cir. 2001) (failure to state a claim under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and prosecu-torial immunity). We affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment for defendant Probst, an Alaska state trooper, on the basis of qualified immunity because Kurka failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Probst’s investigation of Kurka violated Kurka’s constitutional rights. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (qualified immunity protects government 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” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

The district court properly dismissed Kurka’s claims against defendant Jaffa on the basis of prosecutorial immunity because Jaffa’s actions were performed in his role as a state prosecutor. See Cousins v. Lockyer, 568 F.3d 1063, 1068 (9th Cir. 2009) (“A state prosecuting attorney enjoys absolute immunity from liability under § 1983 for his conduct in pursuing a criminal prosecution insofar as he acts within his role as an advocate for the State and his actions are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

• We do not consider matters not specifically and distinctly raised and argued in the opening brief, or arguments and allegations raised for the first time on appeal. See Padgett v. Wright, 587 F.3d 983, 985 n.2 (9th Cir. 2009).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.