the court purpose met on behalf of appellant christopher stand not qualified immunity famously protect quote all that the plainly incompetent and those who knowingly violate the law it's an important doctrine that gives government officials breathing room to ensure that when they perform their government functions they can do so without the fear that every routine well meaning the state will lead to civil liability under one nine hundred eighty three that said the fact that this clip this case on the basis of a complaint filed by my client make clear that it's outside the bounds of qualified immunity and that's because the government officials here didn't simply make a mistake or an error of judgment rather they knowingly and intentionally misled a sentencing judge into imposing a sentence that plainly violated missouri law the government officials here his sentence under statute to seventeen which is a diversionary provision that allows for substance abuse treatment completed that the sentencing judge either had to execute his sentence as originally imposed or grant him probation  have the same problem you have here right some didn't involve five seventy seven the two three that's correct your honor although the original sensing order in this case didn't involve the five seventy seven statute either my client was sentenced under t seventeen and having been sentenced under two seventeen the sentencing judge only had one of two options release him on probation or execute the original sentence the government attempts to argue that because my client could have been sentenced under a different provisions statutory provision that therefore there is some sort of harmless error in the illegal sentence act imposed and however broad the bounds of qualified immunity they certainly don't cover situations like this where government officials intentionally mislead sentencing judges into entering a sentence in violation of the pla n terms of the statute under which the defendant is sentenced to seventeen and the admonitions of the missouri appellate court that they not make those sorts of misrepresentations well did five seventy seven zero two three apply here  seventy seven the missouri supreme court has a sense looked at the same conflict in the statute that we're addressing here which is what do you do when you have a chronic offender who's eligible under five seventy seven for the two year alternative mandatory minimum but is also eligible for the diversionary treatment program under two program you then could be continued to be confined on the fact of an original sensing order that included the five seventy seven as the basis for sentencing so if in the original sentencing order you say i'm sending you to treatment and also as a chronic offender you can be held for two years is the hodges versus apple then as a result of that when you complete your treatment program you can continue to be held for up to twenty four months but that's again that's not that's not the facts of this case and that certainly wasn't the law at the sentencing judge or probationary officer sort of made a mistake or was confused about the nature of the law and as a result of that there was an unlawful detention rather the allegations here are that the corrections officials contention only misled the judge in direct violation of an order from the appeals that they not do so and whatever sort of qualified immunity would cover a good faith mistake it doesn't cover a knowing violation are there any cases where there's been an indication where the judges been misled by someone on the law which gives rise to some liability as opposed to misleading the judge on the facts i mean generally speaking the way that we look at cases trial judges are learned in the law they have to figure out what the law is and then you know lawyers stand up and misrepresent the water every single day in a trial court room i've been there you know for twenty six years and it's the judge's job to figure out what the law is you know and we've held people liable when they've misled the judge on the facts and they've been fact misrepresentations i'm warning are there any cases where there's been people held responsible for a misleading on the law outside of a disciplinary context well if i may your honor the problem here isn't the misleading on the law per se protect confusion about the law would protect even at in some contacts active misleading about the factual basis for you know certain court orders it doesn't protect government officials who intentionally ignore court orders you know  understand that i'm still trying to the figure out how your client was harmed if this chronic of understand should apply well i'm still trying to understand whether you think that was a discretionary matter or whether that applies as a matter of law because the statute says if you're a chronic offender you're no offender shall be eligible until he served two years and so if your man was a chronic offender then it seems to me if that's if that's right the judge would have had no authority to release him earlier and i spoke to probation officers i think about the constitutional rights slightly differently your honor i think there's nothing more fundamental than the right to only be sentenced pursuant to issued orders there's no there's no opportunity to be sentenced under a particular statute and then have a court go in after the fact and say well notwithstanding that the sentence we actually sentence you under was invalid there's a sort of harmless error to having done that because we could have relied on this other sentence i mean whatever the fourteenth amendment says about due process it certainly says you're entitled to be under valid sentencing provisions and you're entitled not to have government officials mislead sentencing judges into relying on provision x is there any doubt that he was a chronic offender no he he was i don't believe there's any confusion in the record about the fact that he was a chronic offender and so was the trial court required then by that statute to sen pursuant to that statute i not sure if it was an obligation on the on the part of the sentencing judge to to rely on five seventy seven it was an obligation to sentence him under the correct statute and i'd just like to know that  in the sentencing order isn't the basis for liability here the basis for liability here is the prison officials actively misleading the judge if all we were up here arguing ex parte phone call to the judge and said to him notwithstanding that psalm says you cannot do this you have the ability to retain jurisdiction not under five fifty seven but under two thirteen to essentially delay the effective date of the probationary hearing and whatever that whatever the facts in the record come to demonstrate after discovery is occurred in this case for purposes of a motion to dismiss i think we've clearly established that taking that action that misleading the judge and telling him he could retain  diction under two thirteen and he plainly cannot is a violation of my client's constitutional rights that resulted in him being detained for an additional eight months and there's no ability to go let's hold on that last point that is the one some dispute you say it altered in him being detained for an additional eight months but if the judge not been misled he would have been required to detain him for the additional eight months under five seventy seven the judge could have retained him under five seventy seven i think he also could have said because i originally you under to thirteen at the conclusion of your treatment program i'm required to you know to issue you probation or to remand you for the execution of your ten year sentence the fact that this confusion in the law was subsequently addressed by the missouri supreme court says nothing about the state of the law at the time this unconstitutional confinement occurred and if we're if we're in a world where the missouri appellate court has said to thirteen only gives you two options at the conclusion of treatment you release the offender on probation or you remand him for the full execution of a ten year sentence and a judge doesn't do that because prison officials actively mislead him into telling him he does not have to that's a violation of my client's constitutional right that's well outside the scope of qualified immunity certainly outside the scope of the absolute immunity that the government argued at trial and on appeal and i don't think that i don't think that surprising as judge alex and mentions there are contexts in which one thousand nine hundred three claims are a cognizable when for example police officers lie for purposes of obtaining an arrest warrant if a police officer knowingly mislead the judge into an issue into issuing a warrant he can't then rely on the valid the issued warrant as the basis for escaping one thousand nine hundred three liability so to hear if a prison official knows that the appellate court has told me i cannot tell a judge he can retain jurisdiction to extend a sentence by an additional twelve months and he does so anyway he can't then come in after the fact and say well the fact that some other statute would have allowed to the judge do this anyway means that i get a free pass that's honor then i think we wouldn't have a claim for the fact that you know the warden held him after the order was issued but i think we would still have a claim for actively misleading the judge and of course the sentencing order here didn't rely on five seventy seven and so i think that that alone gets us to begin a poll has raised a couple of issues that i think are going to be addressed first what a liberal construction of a pro se complaint means versus doesn't mean namely that immunities are not ignored just because you have a construct complaint second smoking gun plaintiff has asserted that it is i'd also like discuss three points that demonstrate that the district court correctly ruled to dismiss this matter first stand up cannot show a clearly established right therefore defendants are entitled to qualified immunity second sand up has attempted to create an exception of quasi judicial absolute immunity that does not exist and third defendant jared is a parole officer isn't titled absolute immunity while saying not claimed that jared contacted the judge because that was within his role as a plot parole officer absolute immunity should apply beginning with the liberal construction and the reading of the complaint plan of complaints that the district court failed to liberally construed as pro se complaint otherwise he asserts his cl or concludes are in nature second while claims plausible if the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw a reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged if an immunity is a political th is not liable this is why absolute immunity when a political defeats the suit at the outset and finally a liberal construction does not mean a district court should only look to the pros a complaint other documents embraced by the complaint can be considered in those other documents provided to district court with the context that explains what actually happened in this matter with respect to some of the men mire as a as a few factual matters some of convict of the class a felony of stealing to seven years in prison and placed into the section two one seven point three six two treatment program upon completion of the twelve month program the department of corrections advised the sentencing court they could retain jurisdiction over psalm for an additional twelve months petitioner upon successful completion of the twelve month program the sentencing yeah we've read the cases i want you tell us how they apply to these facts where the allegation is you know that the prison officials misled the judge and so forth ok well with respect to solve a couple of noteworthy points first is convicted under a different statute that had nothing to do with a mandatory minimum sentence that in and of itself ought to can completely into the argument that like the defendant here was sentenced to thirteen was a political rank to thirteen is a political but it is not dispositive as to a matter all two thirds of section two hundred seven point three six two is that is that the statute referring to the treatment statute well the one i understand that says either got to be like gold to one seven point three six two she was on point three six two is a diversionary treatment program statute for people that are incarcerated that are drug addicts have chronic problems with respect alcohol those sorts of things what's going on and so on is that the statute permits the court to retain jurisdiction with respect to those particular matters for up to twenty four months and the issue unsolved was the treatment of twelve months long so upon the sexual successful completion of that program the court had had to do one of the two things and the mistake was the other the misunderstanding that he still had jurisdiction for excuse me she still had jurisdiction for an additional  it really doesn't have a lot to do with that it's just once they got to the end of that point once the program was successfully completed the judge had to take the next step and either say yes you can go on parole or no we're going to execute the sentence so that's that's how the two one so why well in this case in this case now the record is absolutely clear that he was convicted under five seven seven and then he was also injured in the treatment program under two seventeen i'm sorry but the statement that she makes not correct ok what makes that clear record but the the cases themself are cited to within within the sentence so you're saying page twenty seven the appendix the boxes check that says chronic offender and chronic offenders circled and it says five seventy seven  two three right under chronic offender so you're saying that is a statement by the court that he's being sentenced as a chronic offender yes so the two year acquirement always applied yes and u and so therefore what therefore five seventy seven is absolutely political to this so is this the harmless error point that we're talking him out earlier that even if the judge made a mistake on two seventy two seventy seven it doesn't matter to seventeen rather it doesn't matter because i would i would i would have seventy seven are you wired the is that the argument now it's the argument it was certainly are going to the court was way the the the parole officer tried to trick the judge into doing something that he shouldn't do and it was one it wasn't the case in two even if it were the case there's potentially harmless errors you also this you all have not allowed him to to do the treatment program sit to them be released yet and if the judge knew the law if the judge did what he was obligated under she was obligated to do under the law that's exactly what would happen yes all right and so of the prole of probation officer the trick the judge into doing anything he's tricking the judge into doing what the judge is legally obligated yes but the argument is that sentences only a sentence if it's issued under an order in the order explains the basis for the sentence well if you start with the initial sentence i would say that the court had jurisdiction so under positive absolute immunity the prison is obligated to the prison employees are obligated to follow that that sentence whether it's clear or not and it it shows one that he was convicted there five seven seven zero two three he was sentenced to ten years in prison and he was also supposed to utilize the treatment program so if you were to look nowhere further than the sentence then that that alone would demonstrate that they were simply complying with the law or with the judge's order regardless of if it was actually correctly intern or not and apart from that with respect to the so we're speaking a lot about the record with respect to the pleadings themselves there's there's something that's kind of interesting that's going on and it's getting a little bit distracted from from the arguments that appellant is trying to make at this point if me mr spann up then alleges that the parole officer contacted the court for whatever reason it might be interesting leave the statute under two one seven requires that they're all to contact the court give an update as to how the treatment program is going so then supporting that pleadings if you look to the separate opin decks i think it's page three it demonstrates that that particular allegation is correct because it says that the judge then issued an order in march of two thousand and fourteen saying that he was subject to release in july of two thousand and fifteen the next pleading that mr stanhope makes is that the excuse me i'm trying to think this through the next pleading that he makes is that that he was then kept too long except that that's the what the what the appellant is arguing is that this coerced or suborned amended order that was issued in july of two thousand and fourteen did something wrong in fact it moved the date up six months for when he was to be released so on their face separate and apart from the immunity separate apart from whether or not the judge did or did not enter the orders correctly or the sentence correctly the allegation that something happened is not correct because as you can see as it traces through from from the sentence to the march two thousand and fourteen order to the amended order i in the allegations all that happened was his time to put a reduced it wasn't that he was being held any greater length of time i don't have a lot of time left so i'm just going to point out one other thing and that is with respect to warden o'connell there are no pleadings whatsoever with respect were no conall other than he did his job which was to keep an offender in prison the allegations the few that there are only with respect to mr jarrett who was the probation parole supervisor so there order doesn't do what is required to do under two seventeen which is either release the defendant or execute his sentence instead the mandamus order explains the judge relied on a wholly different provision five fifty nine to extend  time in prison through december of that year so the amended order that is the subject of this litigation doesn't rely on five seventy seven and as a result of that continuing to confine my client until december of two thousand and fourteen was wholly outside the law and was unconstitutional and just it's not as a matter of fact that the amended order didn't rely on five seventy seven and because it didn't do that and because the court was misled into relying on other provisions to continue my client confinement it constitutional rights were violated i'd like to also take the opportunity to address the absolute immunity argument the government made in its briefs and argument today i think it would be a vast expansion of the absolute immunity doctrine to hold that probation officials are not liable for actively misleading sentencing judge think they're important reasons that we would hold that prosecutors who even commit knowing brady violations may not be liable under one thousand nine hundred three there are important reasons why we would hold that judges commit misconduct are such are still subject to absolute immunity that all makes sense and it's very separate and apart and distinct from the qualified immunity doctrine that routinely apply to police officers probation officials and wardens if there are no further questions we ask the court to reverse very well thank you for your argument the case is submitted in the